Light, Camera, Action!
by kitizl
Summary: AU. "There were several rumours that were merely speculations that discussed the life of the washed out yet critically acclaimed director, Lawliet – more commonly known by his stage name L. A perfectionist sociopath wasn't one of them."
1. In Motion

**A/N : In this Oscar madness (written about 5 hours before the Oscars 2016), it seemed okay for me to write this AU.**

"I understand your pressing circumstances, but I'm telling you, he doesn't usually go for screenplays like this! He wants, realism, blood – I mean, we're talking about a guy who grew up on Tarantino and Fincher movies for chrissake."

The man looked exasperated. He was desperate. His client was trying to kill himself, but not on his watch.

32 year old Light Yagami sat in front of his agent's desks. "Look, it's exactly like you said! I grew up on Fincher's movies too! And look, this story – it's like a retelling of _Gone Girl._ "

"It isn't."

"Shut up. The point is, he's an Oscar nominee for over a billion movies."

"Fifteen."

"Shut up. And if he takes my story, and makes it into a movie…" he slams his hand on the desk, "I'm telling you, I'm looking at an Oscar for best original screenplay."

His agent sat there on his revolving chair, playing with the marble paperweight between his fingers on the glass table. He let out a sigh, and stood up adjusting his coat, "Fine. I'll talk to his agent. See what I can do."

Light clapped his hands and jumped, "Thank you!" He considered for a minute whether he should kiss his agent on the cheek, but decided it would be too homosexual for the moment.

* * *

Fifteen days later, Light received a text from his agent, giving _him_ the directions to the current location of the one he wants. It was the address of an old abandoned film studio. He grabbed his coat, his brief case, and for safety purposes, his laptop as well.

In about half an hour, he was about to reach the place. The gates were functional, but the building _was_ abandoned.

"Dank abandoned buildings," Light smiled to himself. "Just like a David Fincher movie."

He knocked and opened the unlocked door, and found himself in the set of a meth lab. He made his way past – and this set was _old_ – and found himself in an aircraft museum set. Without the aircrafts.

But instead of aircrafts, there was one, lonely little caravan that sat right smack in the middle of the 10000 square feet room. He realized that this must be it. HE briskly walked towards it, knocking on the door to hear the words, "Come in" emanate from the inside.

Only, the voice didn't say "Come in" it said, "Who is it?"

Light cleared his throat, "Light, Light Yagami. I'm a screenwriter?"

"Ah, yes, the dipshit. Come in, come in."

And Light opened the doors of his caravan to find…

There were several rumours that were merely speculations that discussed the life of Lawliet – more commonly known by his stage name _L_ \- but they sure as hell didn't discuss the possibility of him being a reclusive, drug abusing, porn watching, diabetic (maybe even arthritis) guy with absolutely no sense of hygiene, fashion, or sociability.

Because that was the first sight Light saw. An English man sitting on a couch with black hair, pale face, and onyx grey eyes, wearing a white t shirt and green pants. The TV was running and it had porn running on it. Next to the couch was a minibar, only it had a lot of cakes, jellies and jams.

"Yagami. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, yeah" L waved his fork at him, his eyes undeviating from the carnal pleasures on TV. "Sit wherever you want," he added.

Light looked around him. The place literally had a million health code violations. Anywhere he sat could ruin his suit permanently. "That's all right, I'd rather stand," Light said. Politeness always got the better of him.

"Whatcha want?" L smirked, switching the TV off. "My name is Light Yagami, and I have a script that I think you might be interested in."

"Why did you come to me?" L inquired, his eyes piercing Light's.

"Because…" Light gulped. "Because you're an amazing director. I've seen most of your movies. You have a varied, never permanent, always changing cast, and your signature camera moves are mind blowing. Your panache for the psychological thrillers is out of the world…" and Light slowed as he noticed L giggling, almost mockingly.

"Okay, and what makes you think I'd direct your story?" L chuckled.

"Because I have written a psychological thriller. In an era where romantic movies are conquering the theaters of the day to day, Japan is losing impact on international cinema. I intend to bring it all back."

"And you approach an English man to do it?"

"Technically, it would be a Japanese production, with a Japanese crew, but an English director."

"Oh, you've determined who my crew should consist of also?" L bit his thumb. "That's not nice."

"I haven't. Not really. It's just a dream I've dreamed for a very long time and-"

"Shush. Look, give me your script, I'll go over it. I'll ask my agent to give you a call if I'm interested. Sound okay?"

Light nodded earnestly and walked out. Seconds before he shut the door, he heard the porn play on the TV again. Seconds after he shut the door, he heard L screaming, "YOU BROKE THE 180 DEGREE RULE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

Light smiled. He was the perfect man for the job.

* * *

 **I actually have another chapter at ready here - but I don't have the patience to proofread it now. So, you might have to suffer with this small chapter here.**


	2. Intriguing Possibilities

**A/N : In honour of my favourite actor, Leonardo DiCaprio** ** _finally_** **winning the Oscar, we have a special chapter here. The longest chapter I've ever written on this website. Yay?**

* * *

Light found himself sitting all alone in his living room. The TV was on, with some crappy rom-com movie that his sister Sayu has often cried at. This must be the seven millionth time they were telecasting it.

"I will change this industry," Light thought. "I will change this industry for the better."

His laptop was open on his thigh, with a screen writing software open. Only, it was blank. He just sat there, waiting for some kind of inspiration to kick in.

His phone rang, and he pounced on it, "Light."

"It's Dad. Get to my office, now."

Light dropped the phone down, and struggled to smile. He put a coat on, and took his purse. It was a long subway journey to the other end of town. He made sure that the house was all locked up and came outside.

It was cold. He was able to see his breath in front of him. He liked it that way.

He got into the subway station, and walked through the turnstile, and found himself a seat on the train. He was all alone in the compartment.

He got another phone call. "Yagami."

"This is Wammy. I'm Mr Lawliet's agent."

Light immediately stood up, "M-Mr Wammy. What is it?"

"L would wish to meet you tomorrow. Is that possible?"

"Definitely!"

"He also told me to bring your list of preferred actors."

"Definitely!" Light sensed that something was odd, but nevertheless was excited.

"And crewmen."

"…"

"Are you still there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm still there."

"Be back at the same place you met him today. 10 o clock."

And the beep tone came. The train stopped at his station. Light got down from the train and got back up to the ground. He crossed the street, and there he was – _The Yagami Production House._

His father was a renowned producer for a very long time. His reputation was almost unbeatable until the international market fell into a rut of romantic movies. Only. TYPH almost fell into bankruptcy and they started funding small indie film makers, but that was not enough to make them rise from their low bank account. They had a few minor hits in romance, and they had enough money to still be in business. Light utilized this moment to get his entry into the film industry.

"So," his father smiled, stirring a cup of tea as he looked at his son. "I heard you met L."

"I did, and I'm meeting him again tomorrow." Light said triumphantly.

"Light, Light, young Light. You have so much to learn about this industry. It is not as cute as it looks. It is one of the most horrifying, terrible, depressing industry. L? Do you even know why he always uses new actors for his new movies?"

"Yeah, for diversity."

"Bullshit. It's because of one reason, and one reason alone."

Light leaned in intently. "But, you're going to have to figure that out yourself. I can only tell you so much. Are you going to ask me to produce it?" Souchiro sighed.

"Maybe. If you think you can handle it."

"I definitely can. I'm tired of making romantic movies and indie movies in the name of suspense and thriller. I know about you, son, and I know what you are capable of. I also know that if L manages to actually finish making your movie, we'll be back in business, and you would be propelled into the industry."

Light smiled for a while, but then slowly frowned. "But?"

Souchiro Yagami smiled as he removed his glasses and wiped them with the table cloth. "If and only if he finishes the movie."

* * *

"You actually came. Didn't your father talk to you or something?" L purred, pouring tea into a tea cup - just one. He then looked up and at Light, and said, "Would you like some tea?"

"Oh, thank you," Light said. He didn't bother to dress up formal this time. He just wore a blazer and a jean. But he was slightly more than disappointed when he saw L wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday.

L dropped three cubes of sugar into the tea. Exactly the way Light liked it. He found it suspicious. He even found it amusing. But moreover, he noticed his screenplay lying on the bed, and…

…were those red marks all over the page?

Light composed himself. "Did you read my screenplay?"

"I did." L said, licking the tips of his fingers. "But I'm going to ask you again. Why do you want me to direct it?"

Light sighed. His conversation with his father yesterday flashed through his mind in a spilt second. "Because you are amazing."

"Okay," L said, almost as though he was expecting this answer. "So do you have any actors…actresses in mind?"

"Not really. But I do have an idea for an actress. I met her in rehab."

"You met her where?" L said, mixing his own cup of tea.

"Rehab. Not for drugs. But um…" Light looked away. This wasn't a part of his life he was essentially proud of. Especially after since he realized that rehab was almost useless. "…for a different reason."

"I won't pry. What's her name?"

"Amane. Amane Misa."

L stopped pouring the tea out of the kettle. "Amane…Misa… Like the one in the cosmetic ads."

"Yeah, her."

"Do you really think she can do this role, Light?"

"It's possible. She's a great actor."

"She's not a great actor, she has a great ass. Those are two different things."

Light was starting to get restless. "Yes, but she has great acting skills as well. She was _used._ "

L continued pouring out his tea. "Well, tell me something new."

There was a long, lingering pause for a while, the only sound in the entire filthy caravan being the _plop_ sound of the sugar cubes L was dropping into his tea. Light was only keenly observing the ripples that were formed. Only a bit later, he realized that the ripples originated directly from the center of the cup. He looked up at L with shock. L didn't even focus. Yet, with practice, despite the drugs, his hand was steady, dropping sugar one at a time, and…

…was that his fifteenth cube?

"Do you have a producer in mind?" Light said, still enchanted by the ripples.

"No, but I have a man who is ready to be the executive producer."

"Wow. For how long?"

"Ten years."

Light stopped at that. This man was probably way beyond his league.

L smirked, "You want your father to produce it, don't you?

 _Plop. Plop plop._

"Well, I don't think I have another option." Light sighed, relaxing slightly on the couch, ignoring the diseases he might get from the fungi ridden backrest. "Besides, it'll be easier to control if I had someone in my own family who produces it, you know."

"No."

"No?"

"It'll be harder."

"Don't be insane L. I mean…"

"Trust me when I say that home productions are usually vanity productions, and when they are not, they are usually earnest ones. Earnest ones that don't work out, ever, because the crew might not agree with the producer's ideologies and there will be one guy – either the hero, or the director, or…" he looked at Light, "the screenwriter who would want to support the producer. The entire team would then face a dilemma. Continue with an altered, abridged version that could as well as be a deformed mongoose, or drop the project all together."

"And you know this…"

"Experience."

Light didn't want to press any further. He knew what was running in his mind.

"Anyway," L started sipping his tea. "I've gone through the script once. We'll meet again on…um…Saturday? We'll start making the shooting script then. What do you say?"

Light smiled, unsurely, "Alright. See you."

"Bye."

Light stood up and opened the door when L called out one last time.

"What is it L?"

"Next time you come for this movie – I don't want your phone here. It was buzzing with notifications every seven seconds, and it is irritating, and distracting. Either switch it off, or leave it at home. I don't like the silent mode. Do you understand?"

Light nodded, and walked out.

The restaurant was perfect. He hadn't seen her in a long time. He knew it would be a nice place to start off again after a log break. Informal, yet excellent food.

Light waited for a long time. She was late. The doorbell rang, and she entered immediately.

Misa Amane. She looked at Light and smiled – there was a certain peace in her smile. She dressed a lot more sensibly than she used to. She wore a simple T Shirt and jeans pants. They weren't torn too. She had a really simple handbag. Light could deduce only one thing.

"Are you here incognito?"

"You bet. How have you been Light? It's been long." She then paused, and with lot of tenderness and pain in her voice, she added, "Is _he_ still here?

Light chuckled silently. "What about you? Is she still there?"

Misa smiled, with some sadness. "She isn't. Not most of the times. Only when I get really, really depressed. Nowadays, that's really rare."

"One day a month?"

"Worse. One day inn three months."

"Wow, that's nice…" Light said, "That's amazing, you've improved so much, that's great-"

Misa immediately held his hands. "Why did you call me, anyway?"

Light leaned back and looked outside the window. It was mildly sunny. "How ready are you about acting?"

Misa looked down immediately, and started fumbling with her fingers. "I'm not sure, Light. It's been what, three years?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you ask?"

"I've written a movie. I've found a director. I just need someone to act."

Misa brightened up. "And I'm the first face that popped up in your head?"

"Misa," Light's voice grew weaker. "You've helped me a lot. I need to do something for you."

"You have honey. You don't have to do anything for me. You have done a lot of things by just…existing like that."

Light smiled, and Misa did too.

"I'll think about it?"

"That'd be nice."

After that, they continued having lunch like any normal two friends. Only both of them knew that despite the fact that they were friends, they were not normal ones. After they finished their meal, Light paid for the check, and they departed in opposite directions.

Light was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The darker days were over. The future was yet to come.

Only much, _much_ later would he realize, that that was not the case.

* * *

 **I did say this was an AU. So, the characters would have been tweaked a bit more than slightly. Call me mad for making the most extravagant of characters a lot more sober.**


	3. Soft Trees Break The Fall

**A/N : I didn't intend to have this chapter written by now, but I've written it anyway. I was bored, I was in a mood, and also a person who I knew (who is also as old as me) died in an accident today. I seem to be at the top of my writing powers whenever I border on insanity. Sue me.**

* * *

"Come on Onee-chan. It's been a long time, and I've really wanted to watch this with you." Sayu tugged on her brother's hand. She was twenty one, yes, but by force of habit, she always ends up pulling her brother's hand.

Light smiled, unaware of what to do. It's not been a long time since Sayu came out of the hospital, and already, she's begun asking him for movie nights. She came to know only the day before yesterday that her brother was going to be a part of a major project with a director.

"Alright, fine. One movie."

The TV was on, and Sayu was on Light's lap. It was a rom-com, which was one of Light's least favourite genres. But he's forgotten how his sister was, how she felt, and how important it was that she came back home after the trauma. He started playing with her hair as the movie began.

"You forgot popcorn," Light whispered into her ears, gentle smelling her hair at the same time. "I always do," Sayu replied.

Suddenly his phone started buzzing. He pulled it out, and answered the call. "Yagami."

* * *

 _A few months ago_

"I could drop you, you know."

"Blah, blah, blah, onee, I'm twenty! I think I can walk?"

Light stood there restlessly. Sayu picked up her handbag, and yelled "Byeee!" as she slammed the door close.

Light spent rest of the evening watching a movie, cringing at every single bad dialogue or every useless shot. It was getting a little too boring for him, so he turned off the TV, and decided to go out for a walk. He consciously left his phone behind – he didn't want to interrupt a peaceful walk with phone calls and what not.

He locked the door, and started walking. There were intermittent cold breezes. The onset of winter. It wasn't frigid, but fresh. It relaxed Light greatly.

After taking a long stroll for about an hour, Light decided to get back to his house, but this time, he only took half an hour in doing so.

By the time he reached the gate, he could hear his phone – albeit very mildly – ringing.

"Has it been ringing for a long time?" he thought, as he unlocked the house and got in. The phone was still ringing.

It was Sayu.

"Sayu, what's wrong?"

She was crying, her gasps breaking in between her tears. "L-L-Light. C-Can you come g-g-get me?"

In fifteen minutes, Light stopped his car, and found Sayu curled under a tree on the pavement. He went over, and bent down, "Sayu?"

Sayu almost exploded, but once she saw her brother, she immediately started crying and put her hands around his neck and hugged him tightly.

* * *

"I'm sorry, who are you?" the doctor approached Light, who was waiting restlessly in the waiting room. Light stood up, "I'm her brother."

"Is you father around?"

"He's overseas for business. Is she alright?"

The doctor nervously pulled out his surgical gloves and disposed them in the nearby dustbin.

"Is she alright? She was bleeding, were you able to stop the bleeding?"

"Mr Yagami, the bleeding was caused by blunt force to her torso. She wasn't just bleeding, but she just underwent a miscarriage."

"I'm sorry, she's pregnant?"

" _Was_ pregnant, I'm afraid. And due to the miscarriage, it had also affected her spleen slightly. It's all patched up now. There were some minor complications during the surgery, so she might have to come back here, in a week or so."

Light sat down in disbelief. He didn't know which hurt more. That his sister was beat up, or that she was pregnant and didn't share it with him.

"I'm sorry for what happened to her."

Light nodded, and buried his face in his hands.

"Do you have any idea what she was hit by?"

"A baseball bat, I think. But anything metal and cylindrical is my guess."

"How sure are you?"

"I interned with a forensic scientist, I'm pretty sure."

"Okay."

Light still wasn't sure. "When can I see her?"

"She's gaining consciousness in a few minutes. She's a bit sedated, you can probably see her in about…" he checked his watch, "…an hour."

The hour was the most excruciating for Light. He was not able to move at all. He sent a text message to his father, but he hasn't replied yet. And if his mom were still alive, he would have asked her to come too.

"You can see her now," the nurse said.

"Onee," Sayu weakly opened her eyes to see her brother's reddened ones.

"What happened?" Light asked, as he held her hands tightly.

* * *

 _Present Day_

"Sayu, I have to go out. Do you need anything?"

But she was already asleep.

Light smiled, put on his coat and walked outside.

It was snowing.

He put his hands in the pockets and breathed out, seeing the fog.

 _ **I wonder who fucked your sister**_

Light stopped as he felt a chill up his spine. "He doesn't exist, he doesn't exist, he doesn't exist."

 _ **That's very subjective. What is existing? Cuz if you say that you exist, then please, you don't. Hey! Don't fucking ignore me when I'm talking to you.**_

"It's just a piece of my imagination. Just a figment of my imagination. Just a-"

 _ **Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that. But what do you**_ **believe** _ **?**_

"SHUT UP!" he yelled much to the surprise of the other people on the street.

He opened his eyes to find a man, wearing a torn black suit, with a dirty white shirt, black glasses, messy hair, a heart shaped earring, blue hair, leaning on a lamp post.

Light looked at him with the end of his eyes, but just continued to walk on.

 _ **How's that babe doing now? Misa or some shit right.**_

"She's not shit," Light thought.

The man with the torn suit started following and laughed,

 _ **HAHAHAHA! YOU WISH.**_

He turned back and looked at him, his eyes piercing through those sunglasses. "Shut up." He thought.

 _ **Or what?** _ The man said. **_You're going to kill me?_**

Light continued walking and continued to ignore him. At one point, he just lost his sanity, and yelled, "Shut up. I don't care if you think you can control me, but you can't! I have an independent life, and I don't need you anymore!" Thank God that he was now in an empty alley, with nothing but a small cat searching for food for company.

 _ **You used to call me by name…I bet you've forgotten my name.**_

"How could I…" Light said.

 _ **Say it.**_

"I want you to get out of my life…" Light said, taking a gentle dramatic pause.

 _ **SAY IT!**_

"Ryuk."

* * *

 **Another long chapter. Wow me.**


	4. Pieces Form Whole

**A/N : I've changed the chapters' names. Again. I know. I just like it that way. In case you haven't noticed yet, these are the names of the scores that came from the original sound track of The Social Network. I read another fanfic somewhere that also did the same thing (except it uses lyrics from songs), and thought that was a really good idea. Anyway, let's continue with this story.**

* * *

It was nine o clock, and it was Saturday. Light was hoping that L would have at least tidied his place up for a proper, professional meeting. All his hopes were shattered once he heard "noises" from inside the caravan.

Of course. Porn. What else was he expecting?

"Good morning."

"Ah, Light, come in. Want some cake?"

Light waved his hand, and sat on the other end of the couch, opposite to where L was sitting, his legs bent, almost kissing his knees. His eyes bore deep into the screen of the TV, as though there was something meaningful taking place. Light couldn't help but yelp when he saw the screen by mistake.

"What, you've never watched porn?" L asked with a synthetic and a neutral voice.

Light looked away. "Not with someone else, that's for sure."

L sighed and turned it off. "This is as close as romance could get to real life. Dying cancer people sounds really romantic and lovely, but it doesn't happen in real life."

Light raised an eyebrow. "Have you even watched Fault In Our Stars?"

"Hmmm," L thought, unwrapping yet another jelly cover. "No. I read the blurb, was bored out of my wits and didn't bother to watch it."

Light sighed, almost giving up on this man. "Anyway," he cleared his throat. "You said we would go over my screenplay."

"That's right," L muttered, as he stood up. He wiped his hands with a tissue paper, and threw it someplace that wasn't a bin. He went over, picked up the thick set of sheets that was filed together. At the same time, he also picked up a red pencil, and a green one. Light wasn't sure what was going on.

"I read your script," L began, as he resumed his usual pose on the couch, but with the file on his knees now. "It was a bit interesting, but it was not dramatic enough to be portrayed on screen."

"Oh."

"Don't be so discouraged. You aren't a director, you're a writer. There's a small difference between books and movies. In books, the reader's imagination is powerful and so people could construct streets and worlds so unique, so matter-of-fact-edly that they don't even realize the beauty of their own construction. Because what matters there is the plot, the characters and that's it. However we're in the business of visual arts, meaning we have to spoon feed to them. It's a pretty apt phrase too, spoon feed - because that's what our audiences are. Babies. Once they hate it, they'll spit it out. They don't stop there either. They go around telling everyone how the baby food sucks. Either you build low expectations and give them a mediocre movie that will perform well, or you make high expectations and exceed it," L looked at him intently, making Light slightly uncomfortable. "So that we could become legends."

Light gulped. He hadn't thought of any such events when he was writing it.

"It's clear that you haven't thought of any of this while you were writing. I'm forgiving you because it's your first time." L added.

Light nodded nervously, awaiting the next steps of them movie.

"So, I'm going to tell you how to improve it. Are you ready?"

"I am."

"Good. Because you might have to wait for a while before I actually begin. There are some other stuff I wanted to talk to you about."

"Here goes," Light thought, rolling his eyes.

L shot him a look, catching Light mid-roll. "Careful. I'm not going to tolerate insubordination."

"Why would you say that?"

"Just saying."

* * *

There was a knock at the door. "I'm coming!" Sayu yelled from inside. The knocking didn't stop. "Oh, wait a minute, goddamn it!"

She opened the door, and said, "Hi."

The woman outside the door smiled and said, "Hello. You must be Sayu. I'm…" she stopped herself midway, realizing the threat to her presence. "…Light's friend."

"Oh," Sayu said with a dash of hurt. "Come in, come in. I apologize for my temper. I hate these repeated knocks."

"I'm so sorry. I do things like that when I'm nervous." Misa said as she removed her footwear. "Do you have any idea when your brother might return?"

"No clue. You look really familiar, you know." Sayu said.

After the door closed, she pulled off her sunglasses and scarf, and Sayu slowly gaped her mouth as she saw who was standing next to her.

"Can we start over?" Sayu said, embarrassed.

"Sure. Amane Misa."

"Sayu Yagami. How do you know my brother?"

"Rehab."

Sayu immediately fell quiet. She walked into the living room, with her face evidently drooped. "Oh," she said, although a while later.

Misa smiled and sat next to her, putting her arm around her. "That's alright. Let's just move on. So, tell me more about yourself."

Sayu smiled back, and Misa returned it with a more pleasant smile.

* * *

A few months after the re-scripting for screen was over, L suggested to Light that he take a break from the movie. Light accepted after much though, and only after L promised to not touch the script any further.

It's not that Light didn't like the changed script. It was certainly more dramatic, more mystical and more beautiful. But the more he spent time with L, the less he started seeing his image in the screenplay. Of course, if he were to be given the Oscar, it would be given only to him, but he didn't find it calming that he had very little contribution to the dialogues, and the flow of the story and whatnot. He was able to subjectively appreciate the new script, but was unable to accept it emotionally. So, when L said that he was going back to England for a two months – something like a vacation – Light was wondering what he would do for those two months.

He wasn't doing much on the first night after he said good bye to L over the phone minutes before he boarded the plane. He was in the bar, drinking, trying to not summon Ryuk out of thin air.

"Hey," a girl came and sat next to him. She looked cute. She had brown hair and black eyes, and was wearing a shirt and a skirt. "Is something wrong?"

Light raised an eyebrow. Did he really look that approachable? His eyes rolled to the clock. It was two. Two AM. Jesus.

"How long have you been looking at me?" he asked her, clearly drunk.

"Ever since you walked in." she replied quickly.

"Let me rephrase. How long have you been here?"

"About an hour before you entered."

"Right," Light muttered as he took another sip of his scotch.

"So, is anything wrong?" she got back to the first question.

"Nothing…specifically speaking, I mean," Light rotated his chair towards her. "I mean, when do you realize that you actually don't…exist?"

The girl laughed, looking away. "Someone stole your work?"

"Not specifically speaking."

"But he slash she made it better?"

Light slapped his thigh laughing. "Can you read minds?"

"Yep," she replied. "I can also control things telepathically," proceeding to stretch and skew her fingers, her facial features distorting, trying to hopelessly try and move a salt shaker.

After a while, she admitted, "Okay, I'm a little too drunk to move anything now."

Light smiled, and mumbled. All of sudden, he didn't really feel like himself. He felt like he had never had this much fun since...since rehab.

"Light," he stretched out his hand.

 **Ehh, I didn't enjoy writing this chapter much, because I want to get to the main story line as soon as possible. That is, the idea I had in my mind when I started out with L being a different director.**


	5. The Gentle Hum Of Anxiety

**A/N : Hey! So the boards got over, and this is like the millionth time I have rewritten this chapter. I never really knew what I was going to do with this chapter, because I was too farsighted. But then here we are, and I'm back! WARNING : I have changed the rating to M because of the content in this chapter, and it would remain so till the ending of the story. Please review!**

* * *

L found himself in the middle of a set. A set of a movie that he had previously worked on.

The cameras, the lights, the crew, they were all there. It was crowded, yet he felt alone.

But something felt off. Something was wrong. It was slightly too bright. It gave him a sense of surrealism.

His lead actress for that movie walked into the set. The set was fairly unremarkable. It was a bedroom in a red-black colour palette. She looked at L in the eye, and smiled almost maniacally. That was probably when L realized something was really wrong. She had never smiled to him. Never.

"Do you remember what I told you?" L said, although he didn't feel like he had any control over his speech. He just spoke.

She looked at him in the eye. She had blonde hair, blue eyes that were slightly swollen – almost like she had cried all night – and red lipstick that was so thick it almost distracted everything else.

"You said," she said, on the verge of breaking into tears, "You asked for realism."

"I did, and you need to be prepared to do it," L said, leaning back on his chair. "Now, is everyone ready? Yes? Okay. Crew! Lights! Camera!" and he shot one last look at her, "ACTION!"

Everyone froze. Nobody moved. The lights were getting annoyingly brighter.

"You wanted realism?" she said, as she slowly approached L, removing her shirt her eyes not wavering from the insanity that was building within. L expected this. L _wanted_ this. But he was confused. The camera is over there. Why was she approaching him?

She slowly pulled the zipper in her shirt down, revealing her topless body. "You wanted realism?" She slowly dropped the shirt off, revealing her breasts, and pulled out a dagger from her pant pocket.

A dagger? "But she gets stabbed only in the fiftieth scene," L thought.

She started crying, her tears flowing from her sunken dark eyes, across her cheek, and pulled the dagger right between her breasts and placed it on her sternum. "You…wanted…realism…?"

"WAIT! STOP!" L yelled, but it didn't come out. He remained dumb. Like he was losing control of what was going on. The light grew brighter and brighter.

She pressed the tip of the blade against her chest and a small drop of blood slowly trickled out. She shivered. But she didn't stop. She continued pressing it against her, and the blade slowly dug deep, until the small drop became a small stream, flowing down her body, staining her pants. She yelps quietly, sending a shiver all over her body.

"ALLIE! STOP!" L didn't hear his voice himself.

She dragged the blade vertically downward, but failed as the blade started moving sidewards, towards her liver, the blood gushing out, spurting everywhere.

"YOU WANTED REALISM?!" she yelled out one more time. "I'M GIVING YOU YOUR REALISM!"

The sight was too nauseating. Allie flung the knife away, her palms covered with blood, her torso drowned in blood, her waistline stained with blood, and her breasts swaying and glistening in the red blood. L couldn't move. He was a statue. The terror in him was building, but he couldn't simply move. She fell on all fours, crawling towards him, making a large red streak on the floor as she got close to him. She stood up next to L, looking at his eyes, drilling her sight into his brains. "I'm giving you realism," she smiles and falls on him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHH!" L woke up in cold sweat.

He was alone, in his room, lying on the bed, looking up at the slowly rotating fan, in a hotel room.

His vacation wasn't going ahead as planned. He got up, and looked outside the window. London Eye. He was in London.

He slowly walked towards the washroom, washed his face again and again. He looked into the mirror and saw bloody, naked Allie in his reflection.

Allison Montgomery. The girl who almost died of humiliation during the process of shooting one of his finest movies. She had to strip naked not once, not twice, but eleven times in the movie. It got her an Oscar nomination. She was also shrouded with pimps trying to hire her for prostitution. And to this date, she blames only L.

L. L for Lawliet. L for Legendary. L for Loathsome.

L, the greatest director in the world, was the sole cause for the attempted suicide of Allie. He didn't care. He didn't even turn up for her hearing. He just paid a fine of 7000 pounds and walked away as if nothing happened. To him, she was another piece in his chessboard. Everything has to be in his control. Perfection was more important than anything else.

For a moment, L looked at his reflection, contemplating the monster that he was. He tried to fill a list of all the women who almost died making his movies, all the men who got divorced solely because of L's obsession with realism. He was inching towards making a snuff movie.

"A small price to pay," he always says to convince them. They all got nominated for the Oscars. All won the BAFTAs. A few actually won the Oscars. Two people ended up in the _In Memoriam_ section of the Oscars.

He looked back into the basin, gargling his throat with the water and spitting it out. "I'm sorry," he whispered, hoping that everyone he let down, everyone he hurt would hear. He knew that nobody heard it. But there was hope that they did.

Light Yagami. Promising young man. Set for the same destination that L was so focused on achieving. L was sure of it. This journey that he will undertake in completing this movie will corrupt him, ruin him, destroy him, and make him forget everything that he was before starting with this movie.

L chuckled. He couldn't even remember anything before Matsuki lodged a sexual harassment suit against him. He lost his soul.

His phone buzzed. "Yes?"

"I heard you were in town. I thought I should give you a call."

L sighed, and walked back into the bedroom. "Who told you?"

"Quillish did."

"Did he tell you why I came here?"

"Not really, no."

"Alright, I'm going to be there in a couple of minutes. Make sure you get all the promising graduates this year. Tell them nothing, I repeat, nothing. Do you understand Roger?"

"I do."

"Good. I'll be there this evening."

"Very well."

L threw the phone on the bed. He put his hands in his pockets and climbed onto the couch, and turned the large flat screen TV on. They had a movie running. Tarantino. Good. He could enjoy a good violent movie before leaving for the Wammy House of film making.

* * *

 _Evening_

"Good evening. My name is L Lawliet, but you can call me L. First of all, let me congratulate you on successfully graduating the Wammy School of film making. This school is the finest film school in the whole of Europe, and you should pat yourselves in the shoulder that you have made it this far. We' will never forget A, my disciple who committed suicide last year, because…"

L trailed off. He knew _exactly_ why A killed himself. Nobody else does.

"…because of his dabbling in the life of a romantic. It teaches us to never get distracted. Never to waver away from your true aim. I'm here to help you all get yourself _that_ aim. I'm here to select a team that will participate as my crew for my next movie. This is how.

"You will all segregate yourselves into teams of any number. By the end of this month, you will submit a short film no longer than 20 minutes. You will need a director, editor, music director all the bells and whistles. All those who don't want to be a part of it, need not do anything at all. All those who want to participate however must submit a chit to Roger here, along with the names of all the members of your team. I will be the sole judge of those short films, and I will choose the winning team who will travel with me to Japan to shoot my next movie. Is that understood? Any questions?"

There was only silence.

"Alright then, get to work."

L looked at the eager students as they all left. He eyed closely a small group that he was almost certain was going to win. He looked at Roger, and Roger immediately came towards him.

"Who do you think is going to win?" Roger asked.

"It doesn't matter. I need to know if they are capable. I need to know if they are perfectionists. That's all. There's no room for chit chat, happy fun times and all that."

"But they are kids!" Roger protested, the caretaker in him revolted against this cold hearted human. "They can't stand such pressure! Remember what happened to A?"

"A was an idiot. A was a man who didn't know his limits. He idolized me. It was his fault in doing so."

Roger gave up. "Just hope nobody kills themselves this time."

"This time," L sighed, rubbing his toes using his other toes. "No one will."

Roger could only return that sigh, and watch out for those weak children.


	6. Hand Covers Bruise

Fifteen missed calls from L ever since he left a text message that said that he was back in Tokyo.

Light didn't bother.

He was all alone in the house, his father living in the penthouse that he had bought a few years ago in the outskirts of Tokyo, Sayu…

Light closed the door in his room, and threw himself on the couch, looking at the ceiling, as though the ceiling contained answers to all the questions he had.

"I can't live here anymore Onee. I need to get away from this place. From all the memories here. And all the ghosts," she said, a nine days ago – the day before she packed all her things and moved out to an apartment.

"And you think I'm staying here because of mom?" Light replied.

"Yes! Don't you dare tell me that you've moved on. Every single time your phone rings, your face becomes pale, and you pause for a few seconds before you actually pick the phone up. That's why you still haven't changed your ringtone since she died!"

 _ **She has a valid point ya know.**_

"Not again…" Light buried his face in a pillow nearby.

Ryuk, the shady man with the torn suit and the heart-shaped ear ring cackled as he sat on the floor in front of the door that opened to the balcony.

 _ **You fucking idiot. How long do you think you can contain that bitchy mom of yours in your life?**_

"You have no right to say that," Light said. "She was always there for me."

 _ **Always there MY FOOT.**_

"I don't need this right now," Light scowled and walked out of the house. Ryuk didn't follow. He just watched Light from the balcony as he went out of the gate.

Another missed call. Damn you L.

* * *

In a hotel room in Tokyo, L sat in front of the television – not watching porn, if I might add – completely ignorant of the three people sitting beside him.

The blonde one immediately bit the end of a rather large chocolate bar, "When are we going to meet this guy?"

The brunette had his eyes glued to his portable gaming device.

The albino sighed, "Is patience a foreign concept, Mello?"

The blonde – Mello – pretended to ignore the comment made by the albino and turned to L, "We've been in this hotel for the last two weeks. Are we going to do something or not?"

The albino gave up and went to the next room and slammed the door close. L wasn't so ignorant any more.

"There's nothing to do unless Mr Yagami is completely willing to work with us," L said, his attention not diverting from the TV. "If he needs an extension for his break so be it. Until he returns any of my calls, he isn't prepared to take on this project. Until then, we wait."

Mello growled and slumped into his seat.

The brunette's eyes didn't move.

* * *

That's the twenty fifth call today.

The bar was relatively quiet today. Light and Misa sat there, quietly, not exchanging more than a few words at a time.

Misa looked at Light from time to time, especially when the phone rang.

 _Twenty six._

It was ten in the night, but the bartender didn't mind. Light was regular, and this girl looked pretty enough to stare at her all night.

Misa didn't want to say anything to him. Light always looked like he was thinking something. Not even contemplation. It looked more like he was planning something out. Damn the person who taught him drink, it seemed like Light could think in such a pensive state only when he was drunk.

Misa continued to slowly sip her pink vodka.

It was bad enough that Sayu had asked her out, and she didn't expect Light would call her after Sayu decided to move out. Any person would have decided that it was she who deliberately pulled Sayu out of his house to ruin Light's life. But Light didn't, for some odd reason. Ten days after she has left the house, he calls her, telling her that he needs a bar companion.

The bartender whispered into Light's ear, "Last call."

 _Twenty seven._

Misa downed the remainder of her drink, and opened her purse to pay.

* * *

 **A/N : Back with the short chapters. Long chapters are harder to write and easier to wreck the motivation to write the following chapters. Please review!**


	7. Penetration

As Light returned from the sushi shop a few blocks from his home, he finally started considering to go and assist L in the making of the movie.

The main question that had bothered him for a very long time is Would he be useful anymore? The screenplay is rewritten to make a shooting script anyway. He had spent the entirety of yesterday watching The Social Network three times before deciding that the movie runs like a train because of the screen writer and not necessarily the director. He then looked up the behind the scenes videos on Youtube only to realize that Sorkin was with Fincher till the very end.

"Alright, then," Light decided, ignorant of the car that was zooming towards him. "I'll guess I'll pay a visit."

The car slowed down next to Light, and before he could say anything, the passengers of the car pulled him in and drugged him asleep.

* * *

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Light asked, as he found himself strapped to the bed, with a blonde teenager looking at him in the eye, and L silently observing the events as they transpired from the very end of the room, and in the distance, he could make out a brunette on the couch looking at something, and an albino on the ground, arranging a domino setup.

Light stopped resisting the straps, and sighed, "Where am I?"

"Hotel room." L said.

"You could have called me." Light replied.

"I did. A hundred and seventeen times."

Light looked away from L's piercing gaze. "You didn't have to kidnap me. You could have knocked my door and asked me to come."

"I know that won't work on a person like you, Light. I had to force you."

"Why?"

"I want you to be there when I'm making the movie."

"Why?"

"Because you wrote the story."

"And my job is done, in that sense."

"Wrong. You're new to all this. You need to be there at every single moment of the shooting process. Your job does not end with writing alone. You will look at how the actors behave on the set, and you will learn, and you will make better scripts in the future."

Light didn't even bother to look at L, even though he actually believed what L just said.

"Why did you have to kidnap me?" Light sulked.

L walked close, and looked at Light in the eye, their noses inches away. "Because this is my movie. Everything should be done in the way I want it to. In the process I'm prepared to do unethical, immoral things. Do you have a problem with that? Because if you do, I must tell you, you must withdraw now. After all, your father is the producer."

Light closed his eyes and exhaled. "Let's do it," he finally said without any sense of defeat.

* * *

That evening, L along with his band of teenagers sat with Light in a posh restaurant that was located in the hotel. Light had his concerns with the manner L sat in.

"They're going to chuck us out if you sit like that."

"Relax," L said, holding the menu as though it were a dead rat, "As long as we pay our bills, we should be fine. By the way, you guys should introduce yourselves."

Light looked at the three teenagers who looked as uninterested as they could look. Of course, it didn't mean that they were – they were extremely interested, excited even – but they just didn't look so.

The blonde one wearing the punk outfit started first. "My name is Mihael Keehl. Call me Mello."

"Mello here," L said, "Is an expert with pyrotechnics. He's going to be our visual effects guy. Our movie would require a lot of explosions, wouldn't it, Light?"

Light nodded earnestly.

The brunette spoke next. He had goggles and wore a jumper with a full sleeved TShirt. It also seemed like he had a console in his hands all the time. Light remembered him smoking back in the room. He wasn't smoking now. "Mail Jeevas, call me Matt. I'm the editor."

And finally the albino spoke, though he looked more like a kid, but he is the one who takes after L more than the others. He had curly white hair, and was engrossed in balancing two forks over a glass. "I'm Near."

Light sat there, waiting for something more.

"Near is going to be out production designer. He's good with props and sets. He definitely has to collaborate with Mello at a lot of points in our movie. You understand what I'm saying, right?"

Mello almost regurgitated when he heard that. Near seemed indifferent. Light nodded.

The waiter finally arrived, and they all had a light meal. L paid for the bill, and then they all returned to the hotel room.

"Not bad," Light thought. "This might actually go better than I thought. Of course, my story is slightly in shreds, but who cares about that? This is a movie that I'm a part of. The movie wouldn't exist without me. I exist. And if this L can make it achieve perfection while breaking a couple of laws? Who am I to stop him. Let's see how much he can push his technicians while making this movie."

Only, Light didn't know the kind of hell children back in the Wammy's House went through to get noticed by L. If he did, he wouldn't have allowed Misa and L to meet in the first place. But guess who is having a meeting the Saturday after the dinner at 10 am?


	8. It Catches Up With You

_"Who is that kid?"_

 _"Oh, him? He's a nobody. He doesn't talk to anybody. Moon Yagami or something."_

 _"Moon? What kind of a gay name is that?"_

 _"Yeah. Or I don't know, it might be Light Yagami instead of Moon Yagami. The Kanji for both the names are the same."_

 _"That doesn't make it any less gay. Ask him for his lunch money. Go."_

 _"H-Hey, I can't."_

 _After five minutes of blackmailing, the kid finally mustered enough courage to walk to the new kid and extort some lunch money out of him._

 _Light Yagami sat as usual next to the window staring at it intently, looking for stories – stories that he could write about. He's always considered people interesting._

 _Except for the guy who was walking towards him now with a crowd of people looking at him, trying to hold in their laughs. He had seen enough movies to know what was going to happen now._

 _"Hey, you. What's your name?" the guy said._

 _"Yagami, Light." he replied._

 _"What kind of a gay name is that?"_

 _"Do you have a problem with gay people?" Light smiled, and saw how the bully faltered a bit/_

 _"S-Shut up. Give me your money."_

 _"I'd like to see you take it."_

 _The bully looked back at the group. The signalled to push Light of the chair._

 _He then pushed Light as hard as he could and said, "Shut it, you pussy!"_

 _As physics would have it, Light fell along with his chair, and crashed on the floor, scaring the girls who were secretively chatting in the very end of the class. He stood up, straightening his tie and looked at his offender in the eye. He was shorter by less than an inch and that unnerved the bully a lot._

 _"I didn't see my wallet fall off." Light replied with a smirk._

 _The bully crushed his teeth and then proceeded to beat up Light till the teacher arrived and wrote the bully away to detention. Light was sent to the nurse for the whole day._

 _While bandaging his arm, the nurse said, "Why didn't you fight back?"_

 _Light didn't reply for a while. He looked out the window. He then looked at his nurse's eyes._

 _"To see just how far he would go," he replied cautiously._

* * *

The weekend after Light met up with L and his team, L was meeting with Misa. Misa had requested L to allow Light to come as well, and L obliged.

"Why would he allow that?" Light thought, as he sat in the train, going to the meeting. "The last thing he would want is a person who would help her out in a dire situation or prevent him from finding out everything about her." He balled his hand into a fist and banged it on his thighs. "If he tests Misa too much then she might have another attack. I can't see her have another attack."

The train arrived. He got up and started walking to the diner they were supposedly meeting at.

"Maybe that's what L wants. He wants to know what's my threshold. How much he could torture her with me standing beside him, helping him because I'm making a movie. He's trying to test my priorities. The lives of others, or the characters I have created.

"Either way, Misa is prone to get tortured. L has a long list of actresses who have sued him for unprofessional conduct. If Misa were to get harassed like that... No. That won't happen. That can't happen. I won't let that happen."

He opened the doors to the diner and watched Misa sitting there all alone stirring a cup of ice tea. She wore her hair down and wore a small hat. The diner was fairly empty, and the seat she was sitting is was secluded from public view. Light was almost lost until Misa waved her hand at him.

"Good," he thought. "She isn't crying yet."

As he expected, L was already here.

He wasn't wearing a suit.

He didn't comb his hair.

He looked the same as ever, crouching on the couch.

"Light, good morning. We were waiting for you," he said.

"Sorry I was late. I missed the train." Light lied. He was late because he was contemplating whether or not to send Misa a secret message to tell her to get the hell out of there.

L eyed Light carefully as he sat next to Misa smiling at her gently. He bit his thumb, and looked at the menu. "Have you ordered something yet?" Light asked. "No, not yet," Misa explained. "I just ordered this tea because I didn't have anything when I came here."

"You probably should," L said, almost purring like a cat. "Your mind and body needs to be as strong as it could possibly be when you're on the set. I wouldn't like you fainting in the middle of the shoot. It really pisses me off when actresses do that."

"Well, actresses usually starve themselves because they want to look like a model." Misa said.

"Aren't you a model?"

Misa looked away, "Not anymore."

Light felt extremely uneasy when the conversation drives itself towards who Misa was before rehab. In the entire rehabilitation centre, he was the only one who actually knew what happened to her. He was the only one who she spoke to about her past. In detail.

She trusted him and no one else.

"Would you like some cake?" L suggested. He almost expected her to say Cake makes you look fat. But, she didn't. Instead, "It's 9 in the morning. I doubt they'll serve us cake." Light controlled his chuckle. L noticed it right away. "Mr Yagami, you have been awfully quiet since you came here. What would you like to eat?"

"Burger and fries."

Near the very end of the _meeting_ , Light was glad that L didn't try to pull any stunts. He asked a lot of questions but he knew his limits. He knew the line that would cross over into dangerous territory. Light was almost surprised that L was capable of such passive mannerisms.

And then L asked the final question of the meeting. "Are you prepared to be naked for the screen?"

"You fucking idiot," Light whispered.

* * *

 _The producer had asked her to see him immediately in his office. She was excited. If things went well, then she would get the job. She would finally get promoted. She would no longer be one of the dancing extra girls but be an actual actress with her being the center of the advertisement universe._

 _She knocked softly on the door. "Misa, right? Wait a sec," came the voice from inside._

 _At first, she thought it was the sound of a zipper that she heard. She later dismissed the thought. He must be moving a couch or something. "There definitely are so many things in the world that makes the exact same sound as a moving zipper," she thought._

 _The door opened. The producer stood in front of her. He was half-american half-japanese, and his eyes gave that away. "Come in, come in."_

 _After she entered, he looked around the hall and closed the door, latching it on the inside._

 _"Take a seat," he pointed at the couch. Misa obeyed and then said, "First of all Mr Tagami, Misa Misa wants to thank you for giving me this opportunity. Misa Misa swears to never let you down."_

 _"Don't thank me yet," he said. He picked up a glass and poured a drink into it. "Here."_

 _Misa took the glass, and looked at him. She has never even touched alcohol before. But she took it to her lips just to be polite._

 _She didn't exactly like the way he looked at her. It almost seemed like he was sizing her up. "But he's the most respected person in the industry. He's really kind. But..." she hesitated. "...how would I know? That's what Betty tells me."_

 _"So, you want to be an actress?" he said._

 _"Yup! Misa Misa dreamed of being an actress ever since I was 10!"_

 _"How old are you?"_

 _"Seventeen!"_

 _She swore that he just heard him say, "Tut-tut-tut."_

 _She just got back from a shoot so she was still in her costume. The costume was extremely provocative. It was supposed to be a school girl's uniform but it was tight enough that it made her breasts the first thing any human being see when they met her. Her entire torso was seen. Her skirt was so small it leaves very little to the imagination. She felt uneasy enough with this clothing, and now she has a man sizing her up._

 _It was seconds before she realized what was going on. She looked at the door immediately - it was latched. She immediately felt her sense of balance leave her. She felt her body falling under the influence of gravity on the couch. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes shut was Tagami removing his pants._

 _She hoped she would be unconscious when it happened._

 _She wasn't._

 _She was awake the whole time._

 _She remembered every single thing that happened to her._

 _Her eyes were closed. But she noticed a camera flash._

 _Now it was another man._

 _And another._

 _four men_

 _at the same time_

 _she was awake the whole time_

 _she remembered every single thing that happened to her_

 _At some point during the night, her body lacked any more energy to tolerate everything, she passed out._

 _She woke up in her home, in her costume in her bed, lying down._

 _Her white bed was soaked with blood coming out of her vagina._

 _"I'm on my periods. I'm on my periods. That's why there's so…so much…so much blood."_

 _So much blood._

 _She didn't go to work that day. She went the next day._

 _Everyone looked at her. As though they know something that she doesn't. Betty suddenly ran to her before some jerk pulled out his phone to check the resemblance._

 _It didn't take long for Misa to find out what happened. Betty took her into the washroom and got into the same stall as her. She hugged Misa, her tears flowing uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry Misa Misa," she gasped for breath. "I didn't know he would do such things!"_

 _Misa's face remained emotionless. She forgot how to emote last night._

 _If wanting to be an actress was what put her in this situation…_

 _If emoting was what put her in this situation…_

 _"I don't want to be an actress anymore," she said to her crying friend._

* * *

Misa's face was immediately devoid of blood. She looked at Light. Light's eyes were wide open. She could see his jaws crush each other. She then looked at L who was looking at her directly into her eye.

He didn't want her to reply.

He wanted to see how she would react.

"Yes. If Light's story requires me to do so."

 _ **Misa, you poor girl…**_

She trusted him and no one else.

* * *

 **A/N: So that's how the anime's most enthusiastic (read : annoying) character became the mess she is now.**


	9. A Familiar Taste

**A/N: Lightweight chapter. I'm desperately trying to tone down on the amount of creepiness in this story.**

* * *

Today, it was a different hotel. L believed that moving from hotel to hotel helped getting his creative juices to start flowing. Light didn't want to interfere with his process. The last time he did that (with a highschool friend) he got beaten up.

Light was asked to come to the hotel room by 8 o clock. Light arrived fifteen minutes earlier. He found Nate (who always insists on calling him Near, although Light preferred calling him Nate) building a LEGO model, end of the room which reminded him of the set he discussed with L for the movie. Mello was on the PC, watching something with large headphones covering his ears, and L was sitting in front of the dining table, with sheets all over the table.

And Matt wasn't here.

"Hey," Light said.

Near looked up and nodded in acknowledgement. Mello couldn't have possibly heard through the padding that was present on the headphones. L was too far away to hear Light.

"Where's Matt?" Light asked.

"Matt's gone back to London. He wanted to see you, and now that he has, he's gone back. I'm building a model of a set which I think would be the most complex in this production. Mello…" Near looked at him, "…I have no clue what he's doing."

"What about L?"

"L is working. Don't disturb him."

"What's he doing?"

"Storyboarding."

Light threw himself on the couch and looked at Near build the set of the 'evil corporation' that was a part of the movie. From what Light could see, Near was building both the interior and the exterior at the same time.

He found himself absolutely jobless. This was new. He didn't have anything to do. He wondered why he came here. He got up and left the room, and nobody noticed.

"Figures," he mumbled as he left. "Why'd he bother calling me?"

Slowly L entered the living room and asked Near, "Who was that?" Near didn't look away from his LEGO and replied, "Light."

"Oh," L looked at the door and sighed. He went back to the dining table and continued storyboarding.

* * *

Misa went over to Light's house and found it locked. She took a guess as to where he was.

He was at the bar.

"Light?" Misa asked as she entered. The bar was empty, and only Light was there. And he wasn't in his usual place, he was in some isolated booth and he didn't have any drink on his table too. He was just sitting there.

"Light," she repeated in case he didn't hear. He looked at her this time. "Hey," he replied.

"No drinking today?"

"Nah," Light smiled, tapping the seat next to him. "It's too early in the day for alcohol."

"Right," Misa said, positioning herself next to Light. "So, how did today go?"

"Yeah, I had no job today," Light said, playing with the salt shaker with his fingers. "I went out as soon as I came in."

"Sorry," she said.

"How are you feeling?"

"Because of the meeting?"

Light nodded nervously. Misa sighed, but instead of a frown, he saw a smile.

"If I went into shock every time I hear the word naked then I wouldn't be alive right now." Misa chuckled. Light smiled as well. "Come on," Misa said, pulling Light's hand. "Let's go watch a movie."

"I don't want to go home," Light complained, imitating a child.

"Let's go to the cinemas. I'm paying."

Light smiled, and got out of the bar along with Misa, and hailed a cab to the nearby theater.

Once in the cab, Misa wore her hat, and looked at Light. "Is that why you were so upset after the meeting was over?"

"Yeah," Light replied, looking at his thighs.

"Where to miss?" the cabdriver asked.

"Hyouka cinemas. Why should you be, Light? I mean, I have been to rehab and the first thing they taught me was the fact that I shouldn't respond to triggers even subconsciously."

"Misa, that wasn't just a trigger! That's wasn't just the word naked dropped out from nowhere! A person asked you to…" Light became quiet. "The last time that happened, it destroyed you."

"The last time it happened. I remember being stuck in a super-optimistic place in between the two times someone asked me favours."

"We're here," the cab driver informed.

Misa pulled out 200 yen and thanked the car driver to forget everything that happened in the car.

* * *

The theater was a slightly unremarkable one. In the already ruined rom-com film industry, this theater had picked the worst of them. Light was already rejecting it internally, but Misa was trying so hard to make him happy, it seemed very disrespectful to tell her that Pitch Perfect 5 is not going to help him at all.

Misa pressed a couple of buttons at the kiosk that gave them tickets, and the theater was almost full. They got two tickets at the very end of the theater, which according to Light was a good thing.

When they were buying popcorn before the movie started (it was a long queue), Misa said, "I know this isn't really your kind of movie, but I thought you'd feel better if you just hung around a projector. Look at yourself, you look radiant already." Light smiled, and bought popcorn for both of them.

It's been a long time since anyone had been this kind to him.

* * *

"That movie sucked even by my standards!" Misa exclaimed as they walked outside the screen. Light just smiled. "Well, you knew it would suck."

* * *

It was midnight. L decided to take a long break from working on the story board. It looked pretty great so far, but he still had to sketch the remaining 34 minutes of the movie. Near was already asleep, and Mello was still on the PC.

"It's the chocolate," L thought.

He took another bite from his whoopee pie, that he actually disliked but ate only for its sugar content. It's been long since he had his fix of oxycodone, but he promised Quillish that he wouldn't get high when he was working.

But what the hell. He was on a break.

"I'm going to the terrace. Going to get some fresh air," he wrote on a piece of paper, and slammed it on the desktop so that Mello could read. He replied with a thumbs up.

The terrace was nice and cool. It was pleasantly windy. L took out a small cylindrical orange container that had pills in them. He took some out, and he threw them in his mouth, swallowing them. Months before he needed water to swallow them. Now he's an expert.

His breath became more relaxed and his shoulders drooped more.

The bright shining lights of night time Tokyo was dazzling enough for those who aren't on pills. For L it was one step further. The lights weren't just there, they were dancing. If he was on acid (like he used to a very long time ago) then these lights would form hyper geometric shapes and they would still make sense to him. But he promised Quillish he wouldn't go near psychedelic substances anymore.

"What a pain…" L thought as his mind ballet danced around Quillish. He almost posed like a father figure to him. Taking care of him, getting him into hotels, keeping check on his health and so on and so forth. If he was his father, then he was an ideal father because he didn't keep complaining about L's habits and didn't disown him once he knew that one of his actors killed himself because L demanded him to learn method acting.

"A monster, a monster," L hummed under his breath. "And it keeps getting stronger."

* * *

 **A/N : Light is going terribly OOC, isn't he?**


	10. On We March

"I matter," Light whispered to himself and he entered the hotel room the next day.

The door slammed open, and L, Near and Mello were watching TV. All three looked at him as if he had gone crazy. Which he was inches away from. "Light," L said.

"Morning," Light said and walked inside the room. "How's work going on?"

L wiped his hands with a paper towel and chucked it somewhere on the floor. Near looked at him in the corner of his eye. L didn't take notice. "We're taking a break today. We've been working non-stop since the day before yesterday."

"Why did you ask me to come yesterday?"

"I wanted to talk to you about story boarding, and I wanted to show you how as a director I'd like to block elements in and around the universe I was creating, but you left before I could tell you anything. I told you to come at 8. Why did you come earlier?"

"No apparent reason. I expected you to finish it by now."

"I have, almost. I just have a few more minutes left."

"I see," Light said and position himself on a smaller chair. He examined the LEGO model that was present on the table top and smiled to himself. "You've done an excellent job, Nate."

"It's Near," Near replied. "And thank you."

"What about you, Mello? What have you so far?"

Mello looked at Light with as much contempt he could muster. "It's alright, you don't have to force yourself into this team. You are a part of this team." He paused and took the last bite of his bar of chocolate. "And all you need to know is that we are doing our jobs."

"Does that include watching Youtube videos all day?" Near snickered.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does, Near. At least I don't spend most of my time playing with freaking LEGO blocks."

"It's necessary and it's convenient."

"It's also for kids. Which is perfect. Because you're a kid."

"Shut up, Mello. You sound like a hurt puppy."

"Near's got a point there," L intervened.

Light wasn't aware of the brewing battle between the two crewmen. He was too focused on the LEGO model. The 'evil corporation'. It looked alright, it looked almost perfect.

Light wondered how could L leave room for almost perfect.

While the building did have a majestic and menacing appearance, it lacked atmosphere. It lacked the presence that Light thought the corporation deserved. Like how L said, "The audience has to be spoon fed." This model won't do. With that resolve in mind, He decided to open his mouth, but L beat him to it.

"Near, do you mind if I share my thoughts about the building?" L said, walking towards the fridge to get some cold coffee. Near didn't move away from the TV and replied, "Sure."

"It looks menacing alright, but this isn't a student film anymore. We're aiming for a blockbuster, which means it needs to ooze with the fact that we're dealing with real criminals here and not Saturday night cartoons."

Light chuckled, "You just read my mind."

"People say that a lot to me," L rolled his eyes, opening the cap of the cup that had the coffee. He took it to his mouth, and then rejected it outright. He walked across the hall to the kitchen to fetch some sugar. "Especially when it comes to director-writer relationships. Some find it quite endearing. I'm wondering…" he said as he walked out of the kitchen with a semi solid jelly-like substance in his cup, "…how come you aren't creeped out yet."

"Well, great minds think alike." Light replied.

"No," L said, sipping the gooey brown substance. "No, they don't."

* * *

 _3 weeks later_

Misa was alone in her apartment, washing her dishes. Sometimes she wondered whether her loneliness could have been cured by answering in the affirmative when Sayu had asked whether she could live with her. But the only thing was that Sayu had a major crush on her, and the last time she checked, she was straight.

But do sexual preferences come before abandonment issues? Nobody knows.

The doorbell rang, and Misa yelled, "I'm coming!" and placed the plate she was washing back into the sink and wiped her hands as she opened the door.

"Courier for Amane, Misa" a postman gave her a medium sized box. Misa took the box, and signed the form and closed the door.

She opened the box and she found four large spiral bound books.

It was the screenplay.

She opened one that said _Low of Solipsism Part I_ and started reading.

She finished that part half an hour later.

And she progressed to the next part. And then the next. Till she finished reading all the parts, and it was already the middle of the night.

She found it hard to understand whether or not she was excited for this. This is indeed, one of the greatest stories she has ever read. And to think that this was to become a movie was simply blowing her mind. To think that she is one of the people responsible to breathe life into a couple of sentences was almost _orgasmic_.

She didn't cringe where she knew she had to be naked, and she knew that was more than enough that she could be comfortable in this new script.

She took the first book and started reading it all over again.

* * *

Light didn't quite understand why L was refusing to see his father. After all, he is the producer, and formality dictates that the director must meet his producer before they start shooting the movie.

"Look, Light. I understand what you're trying to say, I really do. But I don't want to meet Mr Yagami – not for personal reasons – but because I don't want to be tainted by the economics of this industry. I've been in this industry; I know people who look like their creative faculties resigned once they started shooting. You might have already realized that I'm fairly ambitious about this project. Don't make me lose hope in it."

And at that moment, Light remembered what his father told him. "Only if he finishes the movie."

"Is that clear, Light? I don't want any producer interfering with my work. It is bad enough that it's your father who is funding this movie."

Light sighed, and gave up. "Fine, whatever you want."

L then opened his laptop, and started typing into it. "Light, help me out, would you?"

"Sure," Light said and sat next to L.

"Every cast member, and the character they're doing. Quick."

Light took a deep breath and looked at the clock. He wasn't going home early.

But then, what did he have at home to go to?

* * *

In The Yagami Production House, Light's father had his own recommendation for the supporting actor in the movie. L obliged because of his auditions, but Light felt a bit uneasy. He thought it was because of his over-excitement.

Touta Matsuda ran across the lobby and hugged Light once he entered the front doors not leaving any room to react. "Thank you so much Light-kun! I've always wanted to act in a movie that was not a rom-com."

"You're welcome," Light said, unhinging from the hard hug. "But you haven't acted in any movies, let alone rom-com."

"Haha, is that what I said? I'm so sorry. I'm just really nervous and excited, that my mouth is just moving on my own. Am I speaking to fast?"

"What an idiot." Light thought. "Nah, it's alright." Light said.

"So, here you go, the official script of the movie. You can go through it and call me anytime if you want any clarifications. It would be nice if you could finish it today. We are beginning production the next week, after all." Light said, offering the medium sized box to Touta. He grabbed it gently, as though it was filled with all the riches in the world.

"Okay, thank you Light."

"Yeah," Light said. "Okay, I'm out now. I've got to go back home. See you next week."

"Light," a voice boomed from the other end of the room. "Dad," he replied.

"Meet me in my office, would you?"

Light smiled and shrugged at Touta, and bid him farewell as he walked upstairs to his father's office.

"What the fuck is L thinking?" he yelled as soon as Light entered the room.

"What happened, dad?"

"What happened? We're living in a world that is totally desaturated of any movie with actual content and he's giving away scripts to all his actors like he's the son of freaking Bill Gates."

Light sat down in front of his father, and crossed his legs. "It's true," Light thought. "Given how paranoid the guy is, he wouldn't do that. The screenplay can be leaked online, another director can take over, and dad will be the one who would lose all of his investments."

"I don't know dad," Light said. "I mean, it isn't suspicious, that's for sure. But let me tell you this – he's really passionate about it. He treats this entire project like a baby. He's taking care of every single detail. So, I wouldn't worry about it."

"Alright," his father said, removing his glasses and letting out a sigh. "By the way, he asked Emmanuel Lubezki to be the director of photography for the movie."

Light froze. "Wait, are you saying…?"

"Yes. The guy behind the Revenant, Birdman and Gravity. Amazing bloke."

"Also won the Oscars for all three of those movies!" Light thought. "I see," he said. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Well, I thought I could hire a Japanese cinematographer. But anyway, his wishes. Also, when is he planning to see me?"

"Never," Light thought. "No idea," he said.

* * *

L ran out of oxycodone. He wailed and it took the full might of both Near and Mello to get him back to normal with 25 cups of coffee. Black coffee.

* * *

Two days before _the production day_ began, Light sat in complete silence in the bookstore. He didn't want to go to anybody's house. He just wanted some alone time.

Almost a week since L distributed the script and it still hasn't been leaked into the open. He had his eyes on all the gossip columns on the internet and all the news that would come along with a hashtag L and he hasn't found the leaked script yet.

Also, neither Misa nor Touta had called him till date.

Light found that a tad bit disappointing. He wished that his story would be as convulsed as possible with the complexity in the plot increasing exponentially over time, that it would take so many reads to actually understand what was going on.

But since neither of them called, either it means both of them were geniuses or he was an idiot.

"Nice, Gillian Flynn wrote another book," Light thought, and grabbing the newly written book without any second thoughts.

As he walked out of the aisle, his eyes fixed to the cover of the book, he bumped into a girl that made both of them fall.

Not on each other, like how the stupid romantic movies would usually portray.

"I'm so sorry," the girl said, flustered, and she stood up and fixed her hair quickly. Light stood up soon afterwards. "That's alright, although you should really see where you're going."

The girl gave him a cold stare, but continued to smile. She then looked at the book Light was holding and almost let out a shriek. "Is that her next book?"

"Yeah," Light said, looking at it. "Do you like reading her books?"

"Are you kidding me? That's like the only kind of books I can read. This rom-com populated industry is just…"

"Rotten," both of them said.

"Light Yagami," he stretched his hand out.

"Kiyomi Takada," she shook his hand firmly.

* * *

"So, tell me about this girl," Misa said over the phone.

"She's an interesting person. She's a journalist apparently, working for NBC, and she worked as a news anchor for a few years."

"That is interesting."

"What is it with me and people who want to be on screen?" Light sighed, rolling on the couch.

"Is she smart?"

"She went to Tokyo University."

"That's so cool! That's where you went too, right?"

"Yeah, but that's not the only cool part. We actually went to the same classes as well."

"This your chance Light!" Misa said, mockingly supportive. "Grab it by the balls!"

Light burst out laughing, and then calmed himself down.

"Anyway, Light, I've got to go. See you tomorrow. Big day."

"Yeah, take care. Night."

Light flung his phone to the very end of the couch and continued looking at Kiyomi's pictures on Facebook.

"She looks cute," he thought.

 _ **Now that, is what I call a nice pair of titties!**_ Ryuk agreed.

Light never smiled when Ryuk made his appearance. Today, he did.

* * *

 **A/N : Yes, long chapter. I've decided I have too many chapters with little to no content so I decided to make on large chapter and smash them all together and this is how it's going to be till the end.**


	11. And So It Begins

"So, the set is going to take three days to finish, so there's nothing we can do about that. We Japanese builders are a tad slower than I had expected. So we need to go ahead with some other scene," L said.

Both Light and L were sitting under an umbrella outside a cafe which was just a couple of blocks away from the studio where they were building the set. Light was paying for the coffee that both of them were having. Both of them looked east and the sunrise shone through the empty streets of Tokyo.

"Why not just use CGI?" Light asked. L nodded as though he was expecting this all along. "You said you watched all my movies?" Light took the coffee cup off his mouth and replied, "Yes."

"Have you ever seen me use CGI?"

"No, but why not start now? You didn't use exorbitant sets like you would in this movie."

L stopped adding sugar to his coffee and looked at him and sighed. His dark eyes were hollow, as though there was nothing in his head although there were possibly a million things running around in his mind now.

"You..." he sighed and chuckled silently. "Are you trying to protect your father?"

"No, why would I?"

L slammed his coffee cup on the table which caused Light to flinch. "This was exactly what I was talking about when I was talking about home productions."

"L, don't."

"I know the company is getting bankrupt, I know that you are going through a phase of complete insolvency, but I don't care. You hired me to make a movie and that is it."

Light smiled and finished his cup. "I can always tell my father to stop funding you, you know."

L didn't reply. Light thought it was because L knew he was defeated.

"No you won't," L smirked.

* * *

Light was walking back home because he liked walking during dawn, whenever he was in the mood for it. Sometimes, whenever Ryuk appears, he just would like to walk outside to drain his voice among the voices of those who yell everywhere.

Tokyo is a fairly crowded city, after all.

Today was supposed to be shooting day, but then L called him up and told him to tell Misa and Touta immediately that the shooting was cancelled for the day. He waited for L to give an explanation, but he didn't. He just said he wanted to meet up for coffee the next day, early in morning before dawn breaks.

On the way back, he switched his phone on and checked for messages. There weren't any. He had hoped that Takada would have messaged him, but I guess this was early in the day for her. He pocketed the phone, and continued walking along the road.

Sometimes he wondered where he lost himself. He used to be cool, calm and perennially composed that often pissed a lot of people off. Now, he wasn't any of those things. If anyone continued to think that he was cool, calm and composed, then that would be so because he strained every day to make himself seem so.

He visited a shrine on the way back. The shrine wasn't famous for anything, and it was probably the most unspectacular shrine anyone could have ever seen. It was located on a tiny hill that had only about fifteen steps to get to the top. On top of it there was a tiny glass casing with a small picture in it. But it didn't matter to Light.

He continued walking till he reached the end of the flatland on the other end of the shrine. He climbed over a couple of rocks, and then he reached the other end of the hill.

He stood on top of the other side of the hill that had no human touch whatsoever. He saw a lake. It was a lake. Now it was just a small pond. "A metaphor," he always told himself every time he visits the shrine.

He sat on the grassy plain and he looked to his right. He looked at a large rock that was black on the other side, and green-brown from where he was sitting.

"Hi mom," he said and he looked straight back at the pond.

The silence was interrupted by a text on his phone.

It wasn't Takada, it was L.

 _"Meet me at the hotel. 8 PM."_

* * *

"We need to make do with someone else," Mello said as L brooded and was watching his whiteboard that had the entire storyline represented with arrows that were totally non-Euclidean. "So what if Emmanuel doesn't want to join us? We'll get someone else!"

Near was playing with dominoes and didn't feel the dire need to be a part of this conversation.

L remained silent for a very long time. Eventually, "We'll need an amateur. We need a Japanese amateur cinematographer."

"That's easy!" Mello cried. "I have contacts. I'll get you a top notch guy with a camera in…"

"24 hours,"

"No problem," Mello said as he grabbed his leather jacket and ran outside the hotel room.

Near creaked the door open and asked through the gap, "Is the idiot gone?"

L didn't reply. Near closed the door and continued building domino towers.

When the clock struck eight, Light entered the hotel room. L was staring at a blank TV screen as though there was something meaningful in the pixels that made the image.

"Light," he said, his eyes not moving from the TV. "Did you hear about Emmanuel?"

Light sat next to him, unaware of what happened. "What happened?"

"He dropped out."

"Oh," Light felt genuinely upset. "That's…I'm sorry."

"I have to talk to your dad."

"What?"

"I have to talk to your dad," L repeated a little more menacingly this time.

"Why, because you think that he is the reason why Emmanuel dropped out?"

"No, because I know that he is the reason why Emmanuel dropped out."

"L, I won't allow you to do it."

"I wasn't really giving you a choice."

"Shut up. You can't keep saying that I'm defending him because he's my father! What you're saying is bordering on paranoia!"

"Light, look at yourself. Tell me again that you're not defending your father, and I'll believe you."

Light growled, and walked out to the balcony. "Where are you going?" L asked. "To grab a smoke!" Light yelled in return.

"Oh, no you don't," L sighed and ran to the balcony.

"What?" Light said after he finished a cigarette with L watching him like he was an idiot.

"You think smoking is cool, don't you?"

"No, it helps my creativity."

"You're doing anything creative right now."

"I'm planning your murder,"

L chuckled at that, and looked down at the city lights. "That doesn't work."

"What doesn't?"

"The best creative geniuses I have known, they never smoked. They had other habits, but they never smoked."

"I know a great person who smoked."

"Oh, really? Who was that?"

Light took another deep breath and chucked the butt off the balcony. He went back inside and said, "My mother."

* * *

 _"Souchiro. I'd like you to meet this young lady. Her name is Sachiko. She's written a novel. Her agent thought it should be a movie and so they have to come to us."_

 _"Souchiro. Nice to meet you."_

 _"Sachiko, nice to meet you."_

 _"So, you write novels?"_

 _"Novel. I've only written one so far."_

 _"Where did the idea of making it a movie come from?"_

 _"My agent."_

 _"So, what's the novel?"_

 _She took a book out of her handbag and gave it to him. "Read it, please."_

 _Seven months later, they got married._

 _One month after, her movie was released._

 _Four months after, they conceived their first child._

 _Two years after, they conceived their second child._

 _Four months later, she started smoking._

 _"Mommy, but you promised Daddy that you would stop smoking…" young Light Yagami said._

 _"I did. That's why this will be our little secret. Don't you like secrets?"_

 _Two months after, she started drinking._

 _Three years after, she cross the road completely drunk and disoriented, a truck runs over her._

* * *

"Your mom?" L asked.

"Yeah, I don't want to really talk about it."

L quietly sat on the couch, crouching and said, "I won't pry."

Light continued standing next to the door of the balcony. It was quite breezy.

"Although, I would like to know one thing."

Light crushed his teeth and chuckled. "What?"

"Have you heard of the parallel lines rule?"

Light blinked, and asked, "What's that?"

"Our human brains are hardwired to rectify everything that's wrong in our environment. You look at a wall, and then your brain forcibly make the lines look parallel to you. Even if you try hard, they would only become oblique, in the slightest sense. Cameras don't do that. So if you shoot a room at the wrong perspective, the audience would feel something is wrong, even though actually nothing is wrong. All vertical lines in real life must be parallel to each other on the screen, and that is the parallel line rule."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"The best of creative people I've ever known, they've had this one incident in their lives. One incident that removes their sense of balance, one incident that makes all perfectly straight lines oblique, one incident that makes music sound like screeching noises. My question is, what was _your_ incident?"

The room was quiet for a while. Light didn't respond. He started to undo his tie, and he threw it on the couch where L was sitting. L didn't move or didn't press him further.

"What was yours?" Light replied.

"I'm so glad you think I'm a great creative person," L replied. "Answer my question."

"You never really asked me why I went to rehab."

"I said I wouldn't pry."

"Well the answer is the reason why I went to rehab."

* * *

 _"I don't understand, he's 17 years old, why the fuck would he even be in trauma?" Souchiro yelled at the doctor._

 _"I'm so sorry sir, but the brain is a fickle thing. He's just in shock. I'm sure he'll be better in a few days."_

 _A few days after Light was discharged from the hospital, he was back at home, and he was filling cereal in his bowl._

 _"Are you alright onee?"_

 _He wasn't alright._

 _His face looked like he hadn't slept in centuries. But he slept for 16 hour straight last night. His face had lost all hope._

 _The colours in his house were all drained out. The flowers on the basket on the fridge didn't have it's fragrance._

 _"You should try writing; you know…" Sayu told him the next day. "Mom always that it was good for you. Besides, you're a great writer, you should probably write a book or something. That's what mom did before she stopped writing at all."_

 _And so that evening, Sayu bought a typewriter for her brother. He loaded a single paper and started at the black mechanism. "Where's dad?" he weakly said, audible enough just for Sayu to miss it._

 _"He hasn't come home in weeks."_

 _"Dick."_

 _"Onee-chan! You can't call our father a …"_

 _"I will call him whatever the fuck I want!" he yelled and picked the typewriter and threw it at his sister. She barely managed to dodge it. "Light! Calm down!"_

 _But Light wasn't in control of his body anymore. He wasn't saying those words. It was almost as though he was possessed._

 _"That motherfucker was married to her for 19 years you bitch! You would think that he actually loves her and he actually loves his offspring that he has left on this fucking insane planet!"_

 _"Onee," tears welled in Sayu's eyes. "Stop saying such things…"_

 _The next day, Light was taken to the hospital using an ambulance. He cut his wrist using a butter knife._

 _His father did not see him this time._


	12. Six Degrees

**A/N : Hey, hey long chapters are back! Now I can finally resume writing long chapters because I somehow have a plot that's _finally_ condensing like a nebula. I know what I'm going to do with the story, and I just hope you'll enjoy the journey to finishing this story along with me. Please review!**

* * *

A week before the second schedule for the shooting Misa felt greatly inadequate for the role. Somehow, she thought that Light might have made a mistake in wanting to cast her.

She remained locked up in her house for four days, ceasing all forms of communications, and went through her lines as much as possible. At one point she realized that the lines don't matter. She lacks the emotion that was required.

She turned her phone on, and called Light immediately.

"Misa?"

"Light, it's me. I need your help."

"Misa…" Light said, in a voice that seemed loaded with alcohol. "It's two in the morning."

Okay, he was drunk with sleep, not alcohol.

"I know, I know but I really, really need your help."

"Can't it wait?"

Misa held the cellphone tightly and took a deep breath. Maybe she was letting this get to her head. She didn't even notice it was two in the morning.

Light noticed the silence soon enough and said, "I'll call you, first thing in the morning as soon as I wake up. Okay?"

"Okay," Misa said and held on to the phone. She fell on the couch, and just looked at the script that was in front of her. Somewhere, she was scared that she might not do justice to the script. Somewhere she was scared that she would anger L.

She did some research a couple of days before, and the last person who angered L left the Earth a lot sooner than he should have.

Not that L would kill them. But apparently, L would drive them insane by putting immense pressure on them, taking up to 78 takes for a single scene – and the actors would forever be in confusion because they would have a hard time deciding why L was doing that. Was he really trying to get the best shot, or was he just trying to infuriate them?

Either way, the perfectionism caused them to commit suicide.

And they were all nominated for the Oscars. Posthumously.

Misa fell asleep on the couch in the exact same position she was sitting in, her mind incapable of handling anymore thoughts.

She was woken up next morning by the incessant ringing of the doorbell.

"I'm coming," she yawned, and trudged as she fetched the door. It was Light.

"Are you alright?" Light exclaimed, and walked inside the apartment. Misa yawned again. "Sort of. I didn't sleep for a long time, I guess."

Light examined her house and it was fairly neat – except for the living room. The central table had the screenplay on it, but a lot of pages were stuck everywhere. The one that especially caught his eye was the one that was stuck on the TV. It had small handwritten notes written in red felt pen. It plucked it from the TV and looked at it.

"Are you insane?" Light asked glancing at her for a second.

For Misa, it was really hard to focus on anything. She was already thanking all the gods she knew the names of for standing upright without falling down. The region between sleep and wakefulness was always a blur, and she had a hard time focusing on Light's speech. All she could perceive was that he was angry.

"What time is it?" she asked blearily.

"10 in the morning. I called you seven times."

"Oh," Misa said as she picked up her phone and checked. "Shit," she said a minute later.

Light looked back at the paper in his hand and then started reading it.

"Wait a minute," Light raised his eyebrow. "This isn't my movie."

* * *

L watched as he saw Mello and Near battle each other using a video game console. Apparently Matt got a small internship back in Glasgow and so he gifted L with a new video gaming system. L didn't bother much so he gave it to Near, who wanted company because all the games that Matt had supplied were two player games.

Mello suspected that this must be one of Matt's idiotic ideas to get himself and Near closer.

L watched the LED screen with silent glee. While Mello and Near were shooting at a couple of soldiers on the opposite terrace, L said softly, "This game… It has good direction."

Mello paused and looked at him, his face screaming out _What the eff did you just say?_

"What?" L shrugged. "Look at that. It has a steady storyline, and the cinematography is brilliant."

Near resumed the game and continued shooting people in the head.

"Who knows," L told himself. "Maybe I'll make an animation movie one day."

He looked at the calendar and announced, "80 pounds says Light will come storming through the door asking me about the changed script,"

"No way," Mello said. "You're on."

Near didn't open his mouth and dedicated his entire brain power to bring down a helicopter.

Five minutes later, Light storms into the room.

"L?!" he yelled and marched inside, his hand holding a messy bunch of papers. "What is this?"

L scratched his toes and looked at Mello who groaned and resumed playing the game. L smiled, "I didn't tell you because I thought you would tell Misa."

" _What is this?_ "

"The script. Not for our movie. Not for any movie, actually. It's fake."

Light's lips almost rolled inwards to ask "Why?" but soon enough it hit his head why.

"L is and will always be paranoid. No way in hell will he give the actual script away. My father was wrong in assuming that L would give away the screenplay like that. He's too much of a Tarantino fan to learn from his mistakes and would try a lot to not commit the same. But how would one prepare an actor before the shooting begins especially if the budget of the movie was this high?

"There is only one way. Make up a movie that has the same characters. It doesn't follow the same plot line, so you don't have to give the copy of the pseudo-movie to your extras. No wonder he just gave the copies to only Touta and Misa. Only they would have to know how to function next to each other.

"Of course, there is a bigger reason than just trying to get their characters in place. Now they will know how to interact with each other."

L smirked as he saw Light spacing out. Once Light came back to the real world, L immediately said, "Get it now?"

"Yeah," Light said with much uncertainty.

L went over to the fridge to get some yogurt. "You see Light; that's why I am good at what I do. Don't question it."

"Sorry about my dad, then," Light said. "He thought you were an idiot for giving away the screenplay."

"These are things that would happen to any person in a creative field. This is also certainly not the first time this has happened to me."

There were several rumours that were merely speculations that discussed the life of Lawliet. None of them even considered the fact that he too was a human.

That he too was a person who had struggled to achieve the height that he has achieved.

That he too was a human being who didn't get the luxury of replying to criticisms about the way how he handles things because the invisible chains of morality and ethics always locked his mouth.

That he is a human being who is unable to vent out his anger against society and the only way he does so is by making movies.

All at once, Light felt a different level of respect for L. He was amazed by him as a film maker before. Now he sympathizes with him as a human being.

"I'll go make some coffee," he said and got into the kitchen, keeping in mind L's sweet tooth.

* * *

"So, the story isn't real?" Misa asked Light over the phone.

"No, it isn't. But the characters are. You need to hold on to your characters and everything you experience as you go along with this character."

"I see," Misa smiled. "L is a genius after all."

"I guess he is," Light smiled back.

"Where are you going?"

"Lunch date. With Takada."

"Nice," Misa replied, stretching the vowel for a couple of seconds.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll talk to you as soon as I'm home, okay?"

"We'll see," Misa chuckled and ended the call.

* * *

Sayu was astonished to find the door locked.

The last time she visited this house, her brother was in some kind of a mental low. He seemed extremely inactive and sometimes she feared for her life. The last time her brother lost his sanity, she actually was in danger.

Now the door was locked. That meant Light was out.

The sun was just about to set, and she looked at both ends of the road. She couldn't see him coming any time soon.

She pulled out her scrapbook from her handbag and wrote a small note on it and put it in his mailbox. She then swiftly moved without watching and there she bumped into a twenty something man.

"Owwwww" he yelled. "Watch where you're going!"

"I'm so sorry," Sayu replied, and helped him stand up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said and looked at her eyes. "You wouldn't be related to Light Yagami, would you?"

"I'm his sister. Do you know him?" Sayu said, although she hoped he didn't.

"Yeah, I'm acting in his movie. Didn't he tell you?"

Sayu smiled, "No, not really."

The man smiled, "That isn't usually grounds for someone to smile, you know."

"Sue me," she chuckled. "Sayu Yagami,"

"Touta Matsuda," he replied. "When can I see your brother?"

"I have no idea, I stopped living here for a couple of months. Why, is something the matter?"

"Not really. I just wanted to talk to him."

"Right," she smiled.

"Now that he's not here, I'm don't need to be here anymore, I guess."

"How are you going home?"

"The subway."

"Me too," she said walking forward. "Do you want to come along with me?"

"Sure, why not?" he replied.

"So, what did you want to do with my brother?"

"I wanted to ask him a couple of questions about the movie. I don't know, loopholes in the plot? My father told me not to be too pretentious about it so I didn't approach Mr Yagami – your father – and so I thought Light would entertain an informal discussion with me. You have beautiful eyes, has anyone ever told you that?" he said with a slightly uncomfortable laugh at the very end.

"Nope," she chirped.

Touta looked at her for a very long time, and then suddenly, he hugged her close and kissed her on the lips.

Sayu pushed herself back and said, "Mr Matsuda, what are you doing?"

He immediately backed off, gravely embarrassed and said, "I'm so sorry. You just look so… beautiful. I couldn't… help myself."

"Get better control over what's in your pants," she said, wiping her lips. "Besides, you and me? Never."

"Why?" he chuckled.

"First, I don't believe in love at first sight. Second, I don't like guys. I'm… you know."

Touta laughed heartily, "All the women in Tokyo just became luckier." Sayu could not help but burst out laughing.

* * *

"We didn't get the clearance," Mello sighed that night as he was using the laptop. "The city legislation rejected our use of explosives."

L didn't say anything. Near cursed silently. Mello slammed the laptop shut and yelled in hopes that the entire hotel could hear, "FUCK YOU JAPAN!"

"What are the alternatives?" Near said. "There isn't any," Mello grunted. "I hate to say this, but we might have to rely on CGI,"

L's eyes reduced to a slit. "I don't like this," he muttered. "What's the reason they have given us?"

"We don't have licenses apparently," Mello replied.

"Of course we do," Near said.

" _I_ do. But apparently they have no meaning in Japanese soil."

L bit his thumb. "Okay," he placed another tea cup inside his tall tower of empty tea cups.

"What are we going to, L?" Near asked.

"We're going to talk to Light's father."

The next morning, the main office of The Yagami Production House was almost empty. Souchiro's office had Light, L, Near and Mello sitting on chairs. Near was getting distracted by the posters he found on the wall that featured two extremely promiscuous women under a waterfall. Mello couldn't help but notice Near and chuckle softly.

Light explained their newest problem without allowing L to talk much. Souchiro was listening to Light but wasn't paying complete attention. L's manner of sitting bothered him, even though he knew this is how he would sit.

After listening Light out, he cleared his throat. "I can understand your predicament, but there's nothing I can do to help you. Law and Order here in Japan are very strict, and if you try to break the law, not only will they arrest you for breaking the law, they'll seal this company and freeze my bank accounts along with yours."

"Dad, you can't think about money anymore. I thought we transcended the stage where we worried about money. This is about art, and that's what we need to focus on."

Souchiro looked at him, his eyebrows arched. A familiar voice echoed the words in Light's last sentence in his mind. It was all but too familiar. "Sachiko..." he thought.

"This was all about money ever since the fifth sequel to _Kasei e no misshon_ (Mission to Mars) bombed at the box office," he stood up."This was all about money ever since I stepped inside the romantic comedy industry. Face it, Light, there is no more art in this world. People want to step inside cinemas, have a couple of laughs and get it done with."

"That's a gravely pessimistic view of the world, Mr Yagami," L finally opened his mouth. "The way I see it, you have two options. One, you can either allow us to use explosives in secret and to prevent us from getting arrested. This one is tough but it includes you as a vested interest, so you'll need to be careful here as well. Second, you can increase the budget so that we can afford shooting in a country where they won't have a problem with us blowing up our own sets."

Souchiro roared into a laugh that had already terrified Light. After calming down, he wiped off his tears, and simply said, "Or I shut this movie down."

"Which you won't. Because you know this is the movie that will save your bank account."

Souchiro smiled at L, "I'd really like to pay you more. But I can't raise the ceiling. I'm sorry."

The car journey back to the hotel was completely silent, and back in the hotel room, the first thing L did was call Quillish.

"Yes, L?"

"We're in a bit of a financial crisis. Contact Roger right away," he took a moment to look at Light as he let out a small sigh. "We're going to co-produce this movie."

Everyone in the room looked at L with absolute bewilderment.


	13. Silent Thrum

**A/N: So, I've actually planned the entire plot out and I know exactly what I'm going to do from now on. I don't know how many more chapters this story will run into, but I swear I know what I'm doing.**

* * *

"It's small and cozy. Besides, that's all I could afford. Are you sure you don't want to sit on a chair?" Sayu chimed.

"No, it's alright, really." Light replied.

Light had paid a visit to Sayu's new apartment. It was quite small so all it could accommodate was a bed and a small TV. There was a single window that had quite the view of the neighbouring skyscrapers, and the sun shone in between two skyscrapers. Light and Sayu were sitting on the bed while Sayu went inside a smaller room that she says is the kitchen.

"What's up?" Sayu asked as she served him some water.

"We're starting the shooting tomorrow. I wondered whether you'd want to come by."

"Oh," Sayu said and hid herself inside the coffee mug. "I have a semester exam tomorrow."

"You're going to school?"

"A state funded one. I'm majoring in fashion technology."

Light smiled and leaned against the wall. "That's alright. Some other day, maybe?"

"Definitely."

* * *

The set wasn't actually that hard to build. Near stood about fifteen feet away from the actual set which was sawed in half to allow the dolly track to come through it. He kept referring to the LEGO model that he built and added slight touches there and here.

The set was a kitchen.

Matsuda sat in the chair that was labelled for him and he was getting exceedingly jumpy. Light started to get worried, and L was able to notice. He stood next to Light and was having an ice cream, looking at the lightboys running around, Near ordering some people inside the set, the cinematographer – an amateur photographer of the name Aizawa who Mello picked up from who-knows-where – and then there was Matsuda doing breath exercises which made him resemble a woman in labour.

"If you're worried that he's going to screw it up…" L began.

"I'm not worried that he's going to screw it up!" Light yelled.

"…then he's not going to screw it up. He's just, excited. This is – after all – the first time he's going to be in front of a professional camera." L took a bite off the ice cream and felt his brain freeze.

"This is the first time I'm going to be in front of a professional camera," Matsuda said.

"Yes, we know," Light thought.

Mello was nowhere to be seen, and L later clarified that evening that he had gone to get the explosion permits from an international organization that supports international film makers.

The camera finally arrived in a carton box. It was a big camera. Light pretended to know the details of that camera, but when Aizawa was bordering on breaking his seemingly permanent discipline, Light asked L about the camera.

"It isn't that great, really," Near came over. "It's a 12K digital camera, so most hobbyists would get a massive hard on when they see high tech camera like this. L, the set is ready, we just need to start shooting."

"We'll start when we get the thumbs up from all the crewmembers."

This wasn't the first shooting that Light had visited. He had visited dozens of sets in his life, and this was not really that different. He had hoped for a small amount of grandeur seeing as this was the L's movie. L did mention the fact that he would tone down his scale of film making this time, because they were running on a much smaller budget.

Souchiro came early in the morning when L started assembling the whole team together. He stayed for half an hour, then got bored looking at people's pathetic attempt to build a simple kitchen. He told Light that he had some urgent business to attend to, and left without any second thoughts.

It might have been wiser if he had stayed.

About an hour later, everything was set. The light-boys were in their place, the overhead lamps were functional, and the actors were on stage. They all wore black tuxedoes and dresses and Matsuda leaned on the kitchen counter now a lot calmer. Light stood next to the camera which was now placed on a dolly. Aizawa looked at Light once he came closer to the display screen. Light ignored him and continued looking at the small display.

"Background!" L yelled from all the way back in the studio sound room which was populated now by actors and crewmen alike.

The men and women in the tuxedoes and the dresses started moving around, speaking in hushed tones and Matsuda took his final deep breath before getting into character.

"Lights!"

The overhead lamps dimmed to the brightness that L wished he wanted. Aizawa looked at the display and gave a thumbs up to L.

"Roll camera!"

The sound of the power generator grew louder as the machinery inside the camera started whirring.

A younger-looking man walked in front of the camera with the slapper and had the details of the scene written on it. The boom mic operator moved in closer to the set and held the boom mic above Matsuda's head, unseen by the camera.

Aizawa's face didn't move from the display and he gave another thumbs up.

Light grew silently excited.

"Scene 4, Take 1, ACTION!"

* * *

The sun had set and the moon rose above. The lights of Tokyo shone brightly and in downtown Tokyo in a warehouse changed into a sound room, L yelled, "Scene 4 Take 87, ACTION!"

* * *

It was almost midnight when Light entered his house. His eyes grew sore and heavy from all the display watching. He then went out of the warehouse between the 24th and the 28th takes to grab some lunch, and came back and almost slept off thrice.

Near was probably the only person who anticipated all this, as he kept his entire team at ready whenever L wanted to make a change in the set. Nobody else was prepared for this level of stubbornness.

Light couldn't believe it when L said that he was going to downplay his directing for this movie. If this was the case for this movie, then how many takes did he take for one scene – a rather normal scene – in his other movies?

He decided he would be happier if he didn't know.

His phone was switched off the whole day and he turned it on once he fell on the couch. There were a couple of messages from Takada, none of any actual importance.

He fell asleep on the couch completely drained of energy, although he actually didn't do anything that day.

The second day of shooting was the same as the first day. Light had gone to the warehouse a bit later than yesterday and was shocked to see that they were shooting the same scene. The actors looked almost bored now, and Matsuda – even Matsuda – was completely unenthusiastic.

Matt had seated himself next to Aizawa and was looking at the display as the shooting went on. The camera dollied slowly across the entire set as the actors played their parts. He looked at L, and L was now closer to the camera than he was yesterday.

Everything else was just the same.

Light just chuckled and walked out of the warehouse. L looked at the warehouse that was just about to close. Light had left it purposefully ajar.

L's eyes twitched. "Somebody close the fucking door," he said as calmly as possible.

* * *

 _When Light regained his consciousness, he found himself in a perfectly white room. He placed his fingers on his wrist, and felt a small pore. He'd been drugged._

 _He also had a splitting headache._

 _He stood up and looked at a thin mirror that was probably a foot wide and 10 feet tall. He was dressed in a white full sleeved shirt and a white trousers._

 _Near the bed in which he was asleep, there was a vase with a flower in it. He took the flower out, and smelled it before dropping it to the floor. He picked the vase up and looked back at the mirror._

 _A grin._

 _He smashed the mirror into pieces._

 _The alarms in his room blared and the room that was pure white was suddenly blood red._

 _Two nurses rushed into the room, followed by a muscular male nurse._

 _The male nurse pinned Light to the bed who was now yelling at the top of his voice._

 _The other nurse held his hand tight and pricked him with a syringe right in the wrists where she last sedated him._

 _Light stopped twitching and got calmer. His high pitched screech reduced to a dull groan as he continued mumbling, "You killed her, you killed her, you killed her, you killed…"_

 _The male nurse stood up and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead._

 _"This is the fourth time today," the other nurse said._

 _"Shut up and do your job," the male nurse replied._

* * *

 _"221 days," Light told himself._

 _At 6 in the morning, the patrons demanded the patients in the asylum go for a "nature walk". Light managed to find a couple of people to talk to during the walk._

 _He sat under a tree which was a fairly convenient place to look at all the new inmates. He was partly inspired by The Shawshank Redemption. There were times he hoped he would find a person like Andy Dufresne in this cesspool._

 _He had been doing this for the last 47 days, and only recently – the last 13 days – he found company who would help him look at the newcomers._

 _Today there were a line of women who were coming in. Most of them were psychopaths. Very few were traumatized._

 _"I heard one of them who were coming today is an actress," Kiyoko said._

 _"The fuck is an actress coming here for? This isn't drug rehab." Tomoya choked on a twig he was trying to "smoke"._

 _One person among the line of girls was sitting in a wheelchair._

 _"Wait a minute," Light stood up and squinted his eyes to look clearly. "Is she pregnant?"_

 _"Oh, my fucking god, we have a preggo in the house!"_

 _"All my fantasies are finally coming true!"_

 _Upon closer inspection, Light realized that she looked really familiar._

 _The alarm rang and the time allotted for nature walk was over. Light returned to his quarters, curious about this new person._

 _In the 221 days that he had stayed here, he doesn't see many women, and this is the first pregnant woman to come here. Light spent all night hypothesizing why this woman might have come here. Domestic abuse was on the top of the list._

 _Four days later, he saw her again in the clinic. Light was returning from a compulsory painting class (which he sucked at) and he saw her in the clinic. He immediately made his way inside and found her sitting with his therapist._

 _Even though he was only in the very edge of her vision, she immediately turned around and looked at him. Light smiled – probably just to not look like a crazy person – but her reaction was completely uncalled for._

 _Her eyes grew wide._

 _Her skin became pale._

 _Her mouth opened._

 _And she emitted a high pitched shriek._

 _Light immediately ran._

 _He just ran without any thought._

 _The shriek._

 _a loud piercing shriek_

 _the lights turned off_

 _the hall was dark and alone when the shriek echoed from the icu._

 _he looked around and he wasn't in the same place anymore. he was in the icu. his mother on the table. a shard of glass right through her chest._

 _he pressed the glass door and entered the room and the doctors pulled the shard out and the blood spurted everywhere covering the whole room in red._

 _red_

 _red_

 _red_

 _the monitors beeping_

 _doctors running_

 _annoying, irritating, loud sounds_

 _the sirens blaring_

 _The sirens in the room blared again as Light was having an epileptic attack, the room flooded with red lights. The last thing Light saw as he lost consciousness – apart from the nurses and the doctors running towards him – was a man standing with a torn black suit laughing at the top of his voice._

 _It's been a year since his mother died._

 _He lost count from that day on._

* * *

 **Did the center alignment work? No? Okay.**

 **Please review!**


	14. Cherry Blossoms

_She picked up a form and studied it for a while. "I see you like cherry blossoms. Let's try again, except this time, whenever you struggle to put your memories into words, use the word cherry blossom."_

 _Light fidgeted with him fingers which transformed into drumming the desk at a frequency so high the sounds no longer sounded discrete._

 _"Light, you need to take a deep breath, and calm down," she said, kneading his shoulders. "Relax, and tell me what happened."_

 _Light's eyes twitched all over the place, and his deep breaths resembled more of gasps for air._

 _"It was Friday night. Mom had gone out. She didn't tell me why. Dad wasn't back from... back from...sakura."_

 _"That works too," she thought._

 _"She went out. She didn't tell me why. Maybe if she told me why, I could have... I could have..."_

 _"Light, now is not the time to blame yourself. I need you to relax, and tell me what happened."_

 _"About three hours afterwards, she called me up on the phone. She wanted me to pick her up. She sounded... she sounded...sakura. And then I did."_

 _She sighed and leaned back on her chair, and placed the pen back into its stand. She massaged her temples a bit, and tried to plan what should be done next._

 _"Maybe if I had gone earlier...maybe...just maybe..."_

 _She got tired of asking him to remain relaxed. She stood up, and she pressed a button that made a buzzing sound. Light's door opened, and she stepped out._

 _A nurse walked inside and jabbed his arm with a syringe. Within seconds, Light's head fell with a thud on the table._

* * *

 _"Why do you hate your father so much?"_

 _Both of Light's hands were occupied. They were squeezing the stress balls at an alarming rate. She got distracted every now and then, but her diagnosis mattered more than how stressed he is. She already knew how stressed he was._

 _Light didn't reply. She took a deep breath and repeated, "Light, tell me, what did your father do?"_

 _"HE WAS THE REASON SHE STARTED DRINKING!" he yelled throwing both the balls with as much as might as possible and threw himself on her body. She yelled and tried to flee his attack but he already toppled the chair throwing both of them on the ground. He pinned her down on the floor, and he brought his mouth dangerously close to her ear, his face twisted with mania, and whispered, "She found him like this, you know. Him on top of another whore. Except they were naked. Do you want to be naked?"_

 _She struggled to free herself from his grip. Her eyeglasses were dislodged, but from the very end of her peripheral vision, she could see the panic button. It was too far away for her to reach._

 _"Hey, you're on my father's side right. That means you think what he did was right. So let me do that to you."_

 _"Light, listen to yourself. You're more rational than that." she said, stammering. Her body tightened as he placed his cheek on her cheek. "Light, stop it. I'm not on your father's side. I'm just trying to find out what happened to you."_

 _"How could you ever understand what happened?" he said, his chin tracing her face. "Do you know what it feels like to have your most favourite person in the world fall into a spiral of depression becoming this completely other person just because one man couldn't keep his dick in his pants? Do you know how it feels when it hurts you that you don't like this new person but you feel guilty for hating this wounded person? Do you understand these feelings?"_

 _She took this moment of vulnerability, and held his wrists and twisted them. She was strong enough to turn his entire body to the floor. The tables had turned._

 _She then kicked the panic button with her leg._

 _The sirens blared again, and Light started seizing._

* * *

 _A few weeks later, Light was able to control his emotions a lot better._

 _He walked in the rock garden, unable to appreciate the beauty of anything while his mind revolved around everything she told him._

 _Sometimes he wonders whether his own therapist is sane._

 _She said a lot of things. About how trauma had unhinged a certain sector of his mind, a darker side of his that is completely out of control and could arise at any moment. She used a medical term - Multiple Personality Disorder. She said that it would help if he did treat the darker personality as a separate person - a fictitious person - and that he should kill the person immediately._

 _While playing god interested Light immensely, there was exactly one sentence his mind was almost hooked onto._

 _"From what I can see, it's only apparent that you are scared of becoming your father."_

 _The sentence echoed in his mind which now felt like an empty chasm._

 _It would explain everything._

* * *

 _"His name is Ryuk."_

 _"Why Ryuk?"_

 _"My father was born in Okinawa."_

 _"In the Ryukyu islands. Clever. Do you see him now?"_

 _"No."_

 _"...no?"_

 _"He appears whenever I'm upset."_

 _"How upset?"_

 _"Very."_

 _"On a scale of 0 to 10?"_

 _"20."_

* * *

 _Sayu came running into the hospital. She almost fell on the receptionist. "Yagami, Light."_

 _"He is still in the OR. Please wait for him in the waiting room."_

 _A seizure. That's all they told her. It's not like he hadn't gotten a seizure before. But Sayu assumed that if he seized to such an extent that they would have gone through the trouble of calling her, then it must have been a very violent seizure._

 _She sat in the waiting room, which wasn't very different from the one she sat in when her mother was admitted._

 _Her father refused to come both times._

 _Her father refused to come now._

 _Slowly a woman emerged from an office and looked at Sayu. She tried to ignore her, but Sayu locked onto her gaze and immediately walked to her._

 _"What happened to Onii?"_

 _"Miss Sayu, please come into my office."_

 _After seating themselves, the woman sighed and rubbed her eyes. "My name is Dr Oshino, and I am your brother's psychotherapist. I've been trying for the last few months to try and get him to understand the source of his psychotic fits and I hypothesized that he had Multiple Personality Disorder. He was able to find the source."_

 _Sayu's face lightened up. "That's a good thing, right?"_

 _Oshino turned away. "After locating the source of his psychosis, I asked him to manifest that emotion or source in some physical form. Which he did. This usually works. This...It usually works, I swear."_

 _"What did you do to my brother?" Sayu said, tears standing by in her glands._

 _"He was supposed to kill the imaginary manifestation. It always works. He couldn't...He couldn't..."_

 _Sayu didn't need the PhD graduate to tell her what happened next. It didn't matter what happened next. In the worst case scenario, her brother completely forgets who he is, and become another person. The person who he was supposed to kill._

 _"Who or what exactly..." Sayu said, trying her best not to break down into tears. "...was the source?"_

 _"Your father," she replied coldly._

 _Her best wasn't enough._

* * *

Light had a good reason to be anxious. Today was the first day Misa starts acting in front of the camera in years.

He felt thankful when L did not start her acting reboot with the scene where she had to be naked. It was a simpler scene. Light still predicted that this scene too would run into a 100 takes but there was nothing to be afraid of.

Today, it was a living room set. Misa was sitting on the couch, wearing a full sleeved dark blue shirt and pants. She also had a glass of martini in her hand. Of course, it really wasn't martini. It was just water, with a dash of martini, because L demanded a certain level of realism.

Matsuda enters through the door, speaks his lines, Misa speaks hers, argument, Matsuda hits her in the face, he storms out, Misa weeps, end scene. Light knew this scene through and through.

Somewhere around the 20th take, L murmured, "Something's wrong."

Today, L was sitting very close to the set, although a bit away from the camera. Aizawa sat next to the camera and Matt seated next to him too. Near had done a brilliant job of making the set, and Light made a mental note to compliment him.

L stopped eating his pineapple pastry and placed it on a plate below. He scratched his toes and continued mumbling.

"Something's off," he said again.

"Permission to speak, director?" Aizawa said. L waved his fork. "The lighting is too bright?" he suggested.

"It's perfect for the scene. Mr Aizawa I suggest you do what you were employed to do and that is to work the camera. We've redone this take 19 times and we've tried three different lighting settings. Something's off with the actors."

Misa already got politely yelled at when her first take was a completely stale performance. L held the shooting for a while, and gave her a crash course in method acting. He demanded all his actors be method actors. Only then did the performances look more unique and perfect.

"Hmmm," he hummed and pulled out a cane under the table and tapped the floor with it. Holding the straight end, he extended the curved end of the cane close to Misa. He snuck the cane inside her shirt and pulled the shirt. Misa let out an involuntary gasp as the cane ripped through the ridge of the shirt ripping out four buttons and partially exposing her right breast.

Nobody in the crew flinched. Except for Light.

"Who the fuck did her clothing?" L murmured, taking the plate of cake back into his hands. A small made man walked fearfully in front of him and quivered, "Sorry,"

"Didn't you know she was supposed to be drinking so much even the hells ran dry?"

"I'm sorry, director," he whimpered.

L took a small piece of cake and put it in his mouth. The cake moved about in his mouth as the fork in his hand mimicked the motion of the cake. He then swallowed, saying, "You're fired."

The man immediately burst into tears.

Misa on the other hand kept her face hardened as stone. She knew this was going to happen, and the gasp was just a reflex. She had prepared herself for this conflict (maybe not enough). But she was sure about the main principle at work here. She was a puppet and L was the puppet master.

If she is naked, it's not because L wants to satisfy his sexual urges. There's always a reason why. That's what Near told her anyway.

"Take 21," L yelled.

Light was later astonished to find that this was indeed the best take he had seen so far for this scene.

But L was never pleased.

Light again returned home late at night, but this time, L was satisfied with 43 takes.

* * *

Tonight, Light preferred to walk home rather than take the bus, which is what he always did ever since shooting started. He wanted time to think.

"Sometimes, I don't even understand what's with me," he thought. "I hated my father so much I was close to gouging his eyeballs out. I hated L before he showed who he really was. I hated him today for doing that to Misa without telling her, but it made the scene significantly better."

Light paused for a moment, and let out a shallow breath. "What do you think, Ryuk?" he said. He immediately appeared next to Light, wearing his usual tattered black suit and heart shaped earring along with a blue dyed hair that was clearly fading.

 _ **I got to see her tits and that's all that mattered.**_

"Of course," he thought. "But other than that,"

 _ **Oh, so we're conversing now?**_

"I don't have anyone to talk to, right now."

 _ **What about that fine ass Takada?**_

"She's probably asleep."

 _ **Fuck. You've always got an excuse in your head. She's your girlfriend, goddammit! When are you going to fuck her?**_

"It's a bit weird wanting to see your creator make love with a woman."

 _ **Seriously. That's the only weird thing about me?**_

"Don't act like you're suddenly intelligent. I regret calling you. Good bye."

The thing about Light was that he was always in control with everything that happened in his life. Everything until he found out that his father was cheating on his mother. From then on, he started slowly losing grip on what was real and what wasn't, and his desires and images merged with facts and made him the most irrational rational person you could possibly meet. Ryuk was a topping to this entire gourmet and probably, now that Light's life slowly got back into control, he was able to control Ryuk to a certain extent too.

Sometimes, it felt nice to talk to a person who is technically you, but isn't.

He just didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.


	15. A Butterfly's Wrath

4 weeks after shooting began, L and Light had grown close enough for Light to allow L to join him in the bar. For the first time in months, Light didn't sit at the bar, but instead found a slightly secluded booth where he hoped nobody would notice L or his sitting posture.

"You never really told me why you sit like that," Light asked, sipping from his bottle.

"If I don't, my creative faculties slow down by a factor of 40%," came the reply. "I think I'll have some fries." The waitress nodded, and walked away.

"You're always thinking about the movie?"

"Always."

An uncomfortable silence followed that didn't last that long, but it made them both feel very uneasy.

The waitress returned with sake and fries. L immediately took one, and bit into it. His face cringed, and shoved it towards Light. "Pity cake doesn't taste good with sake," he said. Light chuckled as he took another sip of his sake.

"I want to ask you a question," L said, his eyes sunken but yet piercing Light's eyes. L hoped that Light was drunk enough to lower his barrier.

"How long has he been waiting for this opportunity?" Light thought. "Sure," he said.

L leaned back, and used his thumbnail to scratch his toes. "Why did you go to rehab?"

Light looked down, and started twirling his bottle. His eyes immediately flashed at the end of the bar, where he could see Ryuk sitting on the bar, his neck craned towards Light as though he was hearing the story for the first time. He didn't say anything. Nothing felt more uncomfortable when you have a talking machine fall silent.

He took a small sip from his bottle, and sighed. "My mom died. I went psycho."

"You don't really look like a guy who would be traumatized from a death."

"Yeah, that's what my father figured too," and he took another sip.

"How did she die?"

"She was drunk, and she was crossing the road. She didn't see a speeding truck coming right at her."

"I'm sorry," L said, in his usual seemingly synthetic voice, but somehow Light knew that L meant it.

However, L wasn't completely at peace with that answer. He kept looking through the green bottle, examining Light's distorted face. L had lost his appetite for alcohol – he hadn't taken so much as a drop of the stuff for a very long time. Years, in fact.

Light finished the entire bottle before L could even finish ten sips from it. L's eyes narrowed as Light licked the last drop from the bottle.

"How often do you visit this place?"

"Fairly often."

"Which is code for practically every single day," L thought.

"You seem a lot kinder now, you know," Light said as the waitress removed his bottle from the table. "First time I met you, you were swearing most of the time."

"First time you met me, I was high."

Light managed to chuckle without offending L, which would have almost been impossible to do a couple of weeks ago. L sighed and pushed the bottle away, and said, "Shall we leave?"

Light nodded, and as they left, L paid for the tab.

Any person who was walking on the road would first immediately think "What is the weirdo doing with that guy?" You couldn't totally blame them for doing so. One was standing upright, the other crouched. One wore a shirt, and the other wore a long sleeved Tshirt. One wore shoes, and the other also wore shoes – except he didn't wear socks, and his heel crushed the back of the shoe.

Light was proud of himself today. He was able to walk in a stabilized manner despite downing an entire bottle quickly.

After a few minutes of walking, L suddenly asked, "Do you still hate your father?"

Light continued walking without flinching, and shrugged, "Not as much as before."

"Before?"

"Before rehab."

"And before that?"

Light flinched. L didn't bother that they were in a public area where anyone could notice them, or the argument that L anticipated would happen. He continued looking straight, completely avoiding eye contact. He was just curious.

"Let's just say," Light thought for a while, then resumed with a silent laugh, "I wanted to kill him."

"Beautiful," L sighed. "Was that the inspiration for Matsuda's character?"

"You could say so."

"Did he cheat on your mother?"

Light stopped walking. L stood right under the street light, and turned back. "I'm sorry if I'm bringing up any bad memor- "

"Why do you care?"

Light's hair covered his eyes, which prevented L from looking at his eye. L's eyes remained cold and calm, but he guessed that Light's eyes were probably wide with mania. He was a director, after all, and interpreting the emotions of the characters on the script comes second nature to him. And in this scenario – the tone, the posture and the words strongly suggests that he was slightly losing it.

Light swayed a bit and almost allowed the influence of the alcohol in his system to take over his motor functions. He managed to lean onto a nearby building, and sat on a granite bench that was nearby. L sat next to him, crouching with his feet on the bench.

Light started to talk about the entire tale in an uncontrollable manner. L paid attention closely without losing attention at any single point in time. Light was at the brink of crying at several moments, but he managed to keep his sanity intact.

As he came to the end of his entire tale, L was looking up at the stars, ready with a metaphor to use against Light.

"After my mother's death, my father almost detached himself from the family. He supported Sayu financially, but he was never there for her. He didn't attend my mother's funeral. I had a couple of medical emergencies in rehab, but he never bothered to come to my side anyway."

L bit his thumb, and decided to take a chance at trying to get the metaphor across to Light. "You know, usually when people film anything that happens at night, everything is black. The buildings, the vehicles, and the sky. But that isn't always the case. Look around you, Light, and tell me one thing right now that's completely black."

Light immediately looked at an alley that he knew by prior knowledge would be dark, but once his eyes met the dark alley, it wasn't totally dark. He could see a hint – a fairly bright one – of the darkest shades of blue. The moon wasn't even full today. He looked up at the sky, and it wasn't black. The clouds reflected most of the city lights and the sky was fairly bright too.

Light grunted. "Obviously I wouldn't be able to find anything that's dark. There are too many environmental factors."

"Exactly," L smiled. "Nothing is truly dark, Light. There are always some environmental factors."

Light bent down, and pressed his head between his hands. An obviously expensive car stopped in front of them. L stood up and said, "Think about it. I'll see you tomorrow," and entered the car, much to the amazement of the bystanders. Light pressed his head one more time, temporarily alleviating the headache, and managed to walk back home without getting hit by a truck.

He fell on his couch, and refused to switch the lights on, his mind desperately trying to disprove what L elegantly proved. The streetlights were turned off outside – it was too late at night- but yet, he could clearly make out the edges of his television and his furniture. It was a very dim blue, but that didn't mean he couldn't see anything.

 _ **Fuck that L. Softhearted Englishman.**_

Ryuk positioned himself right at the base of the flight of stairs that led to his room. He stroked his hair as he looked at Light through almost closed eyes.

"The English aren't always known for their soft heartedness. And you know more than I do that he is a monster." Light closed his eyes and tried to sleep on the couch.

 _ **You're not seriously thinking that this guy might be right.**_

"Think about it Ryuk," Light said, his voice now lower, drowsier. "I don't hate him as much as I did before. Everything else is just some kind of background noise from everything that happened before."

 _ **Are you fucking KIDDING ME?**_

"Shut up Ryuk. I need to sleep," Light said and dozed off before he could finish the last word.

* * *

"I thought you said miniature," Light said.

"It is," Near replied.

They were shooting inside the studio this time, because the warehouse was turning out to be too expensive for L's compulsive need to take fifty takes per scene. The studio also had a similar shaped warehouse, but it was only half the size. It meant that half the crew that were involved in the warehouse scenes were not jobless, and that also meant that the expenditure will also decrease.

Souchiro was more than happy to hear that.

What Souchiro was not happy to see, was the building that Near built. It was over 15 feet tall, with all the intricate detailing from the windows to trees on the terrace. It was a massive model and Light spent the first few minutes inside the studio with his mouth wide open.

As though it wasn't enough to have one ginormous roof-scraper, there were four of them, in case something went wrong with the explosives.

Mello had found a solution to their explosives problem. He initially suggested that he forge the permits, until Near pointed out that Japan has a 99.5% conviction rate. L was prepared to go to jail. That doesn't mean he'll be an idiot and do everything possible to go to jail. L ordered Mello not to do anything stupid.

Mello then left Japan for a significant amount of time and lived with Matt for the entire extent of the time. They tried finding solutions to the problem, until Matt remembered a similar problem that happened in 2009. When _Inception_ was being filmed in Paris, the Parisians frowned upon the idea of explosions. The director, Christopher Nolan, used high pressure nitrogen pumps to simulate explosions.

Mello then immediately returned to Japan (which was about a week ago) and explained what Nolan did for Inception, and L was pleased. He didn't like the idea initially because it wasn't an original idea, but then Light said that every great man stands on the shoulders of giants.

"Newton said that in context of _physics_ ," L had said.

"It doesn't apply to film making?" Light had replied.

And so today, each and every one of those "miniature" skyscrapers were fully loaded with ten such high pressure canisters inside, and Near and Mello had done a test together using one canister of pressurized nitrogen and a box made of the same material and it worked pretty well. Near had to replace the plastic windows (which was the original material) with thin glass windows so that during the explosions, the shattering of the windows would look authentic.

"Each and every canister in the buildings are set at different pressures," Mello explained. "So the smaller less pressurized canisters will first blow the windows out, and then the more powerful canisters will kick in, blowing the building out." Light was amused by Mello's enthusiasm. He knew Mello was hormonal, but he had never seen him this happy.

None of the actors had to report today since these shots were purely for VFX purposes. The technical crew, Mello's pyrotechnics crew, and L were the only ones there, and Light stood there, because he had always wanted to hear the sound of an exploding building.

Even if it isn't an actual explosion.

"Alright, people, let's wrap this up as fast as possible," L yelled into his megaphone. "Get the pressure pumps ready."

The large air pumps that were outside the buildings started humming, although it couldn't be classified as a hum because it was pretty loud.

"Lights!"

The hemi lamps turned on and focused all the lights on the buildings. The light had a tinge of blue in it, and L thought that was necessary for the compositing of the movie.

"Roll camera!"

The camera started whirring, and Aizawa sat along with the external display which was a couple of meters away from the robotic crane on which the camera was fitted.

The robotic crane was controlled by a small joystick that was in Aizawa's hand. He practiced the planned movements of the camera well in advance. The camera moved along the buildings, making sure through the display that the buildings looked nothing like miniatures and look like actual buildings. The green screen behind the buildings prevented the chaotic wiring that ran across the walls and floors fall on the camera.

"First round."

The windows shattered and almost looked like it was some aerosol. Seconds after the windows shattered, the terrace blew up and the top floors also blew up. There was no fire, no smoke, but it was very loud, and the lightweight wood that Near used to construct the building fragmented under the force of air.

After the pieces settled down, L yelled again, "Second round."

This time, the explosions happened methodically. Each of the four faces of the building blew up in some pattern that Light could figure out in a second, and the explosions moved from the top to the bottom. Once the explosions were five floors above the ground, L yelled, "Third round!" and the entirety of the lower floors exploded in such a manner there was no trace of a building left.

During this entire shot of chaos, the camera kept panning around the building as it exploded. For safety reasons, the camera was fitted with toughened glass so that none of the pieces would destroy the camera.

Light stood there satisfied with the shot. He turned and looked at L, almost sure that L would be frowning. But he was not. L was very, very pleased.

"Good work Mello. You too Aizawa."

Aizawa was more than pleased that a legendary director had appreciated him. Mello was also happy, but he didn't show it outside.

"We have three more buildings. Who wants to blow them up?" L said.

Both Near and Mello raised an eyebrow. Everyone else cheered.

* * *

 **Please review!**


	16. Two Sides of a Coin

_He managed to pull himself out of the bar, but unfortunately it was located underground. That meant that he had to climb the stairs in order to get to the road. He always found it difficult to climb out of stairs drunk, but today was an exceptional case. He was exceedingly drunk._

 _He fell on the railing, and tried to pull himself towards the road using his hands. His legs failed him to give him the boost he needed to hold on to the stairs. He fell on the marble flooring. He hoped he didn't break his teeth. "Rich bastards," he thought._

 _He used his sweaty palms to try and get a grip on the smooth floor. He swam for a while on the floor, not moving at all much at all. At one point, he found some traction because of the suit he was wearing and now he was able stand up. He held on to the railing and he tried all over again._

 _It worked this time._

 _He fell on the pavement of the road, and struggled to get up. He looked up and realized his glasses were broken. "It's a reflection of my soul," he thought. He allowed himself a small laugh. "Heh. I'm always poetic when I'm drunk."_

 _The sun would rise in a few hours. He decided that the pavement would be his bed for those remaining hours. He leaned on the hedge nearby. The plants nearly gave way, but it stopped halfway, and he fell asleep._

 _He woke up a few hours later. The sun was high above the sky. He checked his watch. He didn't have it in his hand. "Damn thieves," he thought. He tried to guess the time by judging the position of the sun. It was approaching afternoon._

 _"Shit, I'm going to be late."_

 _He was less drunk now. His swagger was still horrible, but he could manage to walk._

 _To others on the street, there was a man in a tattered suit who was walking aimlessly. To him, however, he knew exactly where he was going. He knew was going to get really drunk yesterday, so he practiced walking the path enough times last night to make sure that however drunk he was, he could make it there._

 _The world still looked hazy. He wasn't sure whether it was because of the seven hours a day for the last week, or because of the two bottles of tequila he downed last night without throwing up._

 _And he still didn't throw up. On any normal day, he would proud of the feat that he had accomplished. Today wasn't a normal day. Today he prayed that his inner demons don't emerge from the darkness._

 _He leaned on a lamp post for a while, and looked at the large clock that was across the street. He had half an hour left. He wasn't too far away._

 _For one moment, he wished that he could do what he saw in a movie he watched a while ago. It was about a young man who could step inside a closet and go back in time so that he could undo all the mistakes he had committed in his life. Especially when it came to the woman he loves._

 _When he looked back at his life, he could see the glorious happy days in the beginning, until they all turned darker and greyer in the middle. If he had a hundred yen for each time he made a mistake, he would be rich enough to prevent those gray areas in his life from ever occurring._

 _So many gray areas._

 _He finally reached the fence of his destination. He didn't want anyone to see him in this state. HE hid behind the hedge and looked through it by pushing all the foliage._

 _He could see at least thirty people standing in a crowd, all adorned in black. He looked at what he was wearing. Beige. Not appropriate for a funeral at all._

 _The priest stood behind the gravestone, giving out his eulogy. The girl could barely stand straight. She almost collapsed on the boy who was using up all of his willpower to just stand straight. The others who were there, didn't really care for the dead. He knew that far too well._

 _It took them two entire hours to disperse. He was getting tired, and he was also getting sober. His mind becomes too fast when he is sober, and that is something that he cannot tolerate because if he does start thinking, then he'll need another bottle of tequila to stop him from killing someone._

 _It then started drizzling._

 _The other people in black pulled out their colourful umbrellas, forgetting the courtesies that their parents had taught them. The moment when the richer part of Tokyo forgets their courtesies, that's when you know this world is going to end._

 _It started raining._

 _He almost laughed out loud at the obvious hypocrisy. He looked into the graveyard again, and saw that the boy was probably saying the same thing to the girl. The girl then left, alone, carrying a black umbrella. The boy stood there getting drenched in the rain._

 _The boy stood there for an extended period of time, almost forgetting that his suit was getting fuzzy from the heavy rain._

 _The rain battered his back, and he had to adjust his sitting position next to the hedge. He moved away from the entrance to make sure nobody saw him. But he made sure he could still see the boy._

 _The boy didn't move an inch._

 _The boy stood there for over half an hour, until the rain ceased. He then walked out of the graveyard. He couldn't catch a glimpse of the boy's face. Not that it mattered._

 _He looked around as he watched the world through his broken glasses. He saw the boy's back move across the road - although it seemed to him that the boy had actually walked across the road four times. He removed his glasses and watched as the blurred version of the black smudge ignored the cab that was waiting for him with the girl inside. The boy walked to the place where he started his journey this morning._

 _He put on his glasses once again, and looked around the block. Even the priest left._

 _He stood up, and there was no disorientation anymore. He walked swiftly, steadily, before he lost his sanity and started crying again. He quickly made it to the grave, and looked at the engraved symbols on the tombstone. It was written in Kanji. She always liked Kanji._

 _"Yagami, Sachiko. Loving daughter, mother and wife."_

 _He couldn't hold it in anymore._

 _He broke into tears and fell on the fresh mud, punching it with his fists till they were red and sore, wailing and moaning._

 _"WHHYYYYYYYYYYY!" he wailed._

 _He then hugged the gravestone, and cried for a couple more hours till he passed out._

* * *

 _At one point, he didn't know what was happening in his life._

 _Everything was a blur. Everything was shattering. Every sound was screeching. All straight lines were crooked. And his son was admitted into the psych ward._

 _"_ _He suffered from trauma," he thought and let himself chuckle, downing another shot. "Seventeen fucking years old, and he's traumatized. Fucking baby."_

 _He scratched the sides of his head where his hair had a streak of gray._

 _"_ _Mommy dies, and let's kill the sister with a typewriter," he thought. "Of course, why not? That's what all the sane people in this world do. Oh, right. He_ isn't _sane._

 _"_ _Catches me getting raped by an actress in my movie because she wanted a raise, and declares that I was cheating on his mom. He blames her death on me, obviously. Obviously, because who else would he blame? He has to blame someone, he's always blamed someone or the other, because that's what he needs to do. He's watched far too much movies, and all conclusions he will come to about his father, will be overly dramatic._

 _"_ _Traumatized by his mother's death. I swear I've heard better jokes in my life."_

 _"_ _Last call," the barmaid said._

 _"_ _Fuck you," he whispered._

 _"_ _He thinks I was cheating on her. He thinks I made her miserable. He thinks…I'm a monster."_

* * *

He removed his glasses and placed them on the table. "Alicia," he said, and a young secretary entered the door. "I'm done for the day. You should go home too,"

"Thank you, sir," she said, bowed and closed the door.

He closed all the open files on his desk, and shoved them in a drawer. He shut the computer down, and went into the bathroom.

He looked at his reflection and smiled. The sides of his head were a gray band now, rather than the streak that they were years ago. The stress has taken a toll on him. He washed his face, then combed his hair. He straightened his suit, and walked out of the office.

As he walked out of the office, trying to get the attention of a taxicab, he noticed a van that was moving on the road. It pulled over close to the studio, and got inside the warehouse where L was shooting that day. Light soon walked out of the warehouse, and stretched his back. He immediately made eye contact. Light then moved his eyes away, and found Mello nearby. He immediately started talking with him, as he moved out of the studio through the other exit.

Souchiro smiled.

A cab stopped close to him, and he got inside the cab.

* * *

"Why do you want me to read it?"

"Because I want you to."

Kiyomi stood there, her mouth open, looking at the spiral bound book in her hand. The screenplay for _Low of Solipsism._ Light wanted her to read it.

Light felt a small pain in his chest as soon as he gave it to her. He has been giving her too many symbols of trust too fast. But then, his therapist did say that every time he does feel such a thing, he should ignore it. And that's what Light was doing now.

"Light…I can't."

"Please, you have to. It's my work, and I if you liked the other stuff I showed you, then you'll definitely like this."

She didn't smile. She kissed Light and removed his shirt button by button after dropping the book to the table. Light pulled himself away and gasped for breath. "You're serious?"

"I'm serious."

* * *

"You both did it, didn't you?" Misa smiled slyly.

"Is it that obvious?" Light looked at his plate.

Misa picked up her chopsticks, and started eating the ramen in front of her. "You're literally glowing. I thought it was the pregnant women that glow."

"I wore a condom."

"Yech, please don't go into details."

Light stood up, his arms stretched out wide, "And then she ripped my shirt off, as her tongue danced wildly inside my mouth…"

"STOP!" Misa yelled, and pushed the table with her legs that hit Light's lower leg. "Ouch!"

Light sat back down, nursing his leg. "That hurt."

"That was the point," she said, snapping her chopsticks.

Light continued eating, and for the next few minutes, the only sounds in the room, was the ticking of the clock, and the slurping of the ramen from the plate.

* * *

The next morning, L asked Light to meet him in his hotel. He said he had to tell him something.

Light wore a light jacket, and took the train to reach L's new hotel. When he got to the floor where L was, he could hear…yelling.

Now that he thought about it, L didn't tell him, L texted him.

Light's rational thinking kicked in. He hoped L wasn't going to tell him what he dreaded it would be.

He knocked on the door, and the shouting ceased for a while. "Come in," Mello's voice was heard, so obviously filled with anger and hate.

Light opened the door, his face twisted with fear, and the fear compounded even more when he saw his father sitting on a chair opposite to L who was surrounded by empty plates that once contained cakes and enough sugar to give a horse a diabetic attack.

L looked at Light, his eyebrows arched, and his fingers were dancing on his knees. L had never been so angry.

Mello was sitting on the floor although he was sitting far away. Even though he sounded angry, his face was pale with fear.

If Nate wasn't white and pale enough already…

And his father, why was his father here?

"Sit down, Light," his father ordered.

Light removed his shoes and stood in a position that was equally far away from his father and L.

L's hands clutched a cup so tightly, it was almost as though he was fighting his immense urge to throw the cup at someone. Light hoped that he wouldn't be that someone.

His hopes were crushed.

"Our script has been leaked by some internet journalist called Takada," his father said, containing his fury. "We're cancelling the movie."

Light fell on his knees, and within seconds, he fainted.

* * *

 **Please review!**


	17. Unhinged

**A/N: This is definitely the longest chapter I have ever uploaded. I love this story for that reason mainly. It keeps pushing my borders. I used to write 800 words a chapter before this story** **.**

 **Anyway, I hope you are enjoying the story so far.**

* * *

 _evil_

 _darkness_

 _permeates through walls_

 _darkness_

 _reaches out with its claws_

 _darkness_

 _never ceases to spread_

 _darkness_

 _is everywhere_

The world started rotating. The clocks slowed down. The voice of his father was no more than a dull drone. His peripheral vision was getting dark. The world spun out of control, and it all crashed with a dull thud that was loud enough.

All black.

It was completely dark. There was no light anywhere. The only sound that Light could hear was a very loud low pitched thrum that sounded like he was drowning next to a very large carrier ship.

Even though it was completely dark, Light felt a sense of disorientation. Like he was falling off a cliff. Or spinning out of control in outer space. He felt his inner ear completely confused with the onset of the massive amounts of centrifugal data, because his eyes weren't corresponding with his ears.

Usually, in a situation like this, any human would puke, Light included. Light opened his mouth and heaved.

But nothing came out.

Instead he fell with a louder thud even though he could still see nothing. An invisible floor lay below him, and the thud was so loud it echoed across the empty halls in darkness.

Light curled up into a fetal position, trying to hold it all together. But he knew all too well that now he is nothing more than a lost cause. The last time he ended up in this portion of his mind...

Light called it by various names. The Nu (because Greek letters always fascinated him, and somehow Nu reeked of the idea of void to him), The Null Void, the Shinigami Realm and the Error Screen. All in all, this was the place where Light ends up in whenever his mind shuts down. His last trip down here was most horrifying, and he was apparently fully awake in the physical realm while he was stuck in the Nu. It had been weeks till his consciousness brought him back to the real world, and by then, he was already in a hospital. Stuffed inside a straitjacket. Under an MRI.

The echoes of the loud thud of his fall finally ceased.

In the Nu, he had no physical form. Even though he could feel his body, his body doesn't actually exist. He can't see his body, and he can't hear his body, but he knows he is inside one.

 _omnipresent_

 _omnipotent_

 _the recess of your mind_

 _the memory dump_

 _the bottomless pit of regrets_

Light waited for the regret part of this trip to begin. And as soon as he thought of it, it did.

A bright soaring sepia light bled into the darkness creating a screen of sorts that was large. The light was blindingly bright that if it were placed in the physical realm, it would brighten up the moon on a New Moon day, if it was pointed towards the ground. Unfortunately, there were no physical object in the Nu.

The bookstore. Where he first met her.

 _the femme fatale_

 _the opportunist_

 _the female embodiment of evil_

While the biggest sepia screen replayed the moment when the two of them met, multiple such screens popped up alongside. They weren't memories, no. This was the brain working. Rationalizing. Problem solving. A computer desperate to find the computer virus hidden in the depths of memory.

The subsequent screens held the answers to the question How could I have known before. Foreshadowing. Each screen was as good as a conspiracy theory. The brain picks out the most plausible one.

 _with a bluetooth headset, she makes it in front of him_

 _she runs into him_

 _on purpose_

 _"good job" the voice in the headset says_

 _every kiss_

 _every hug_

 _every symbol of trust_

 _every conversation_

The main screen corroded through the invisible black walls, almost piercing this reality. Blue sparks flew from the main screen and danced across the Nu in a seemingly random motion.

 _every lie_

The main screen showed every moment of bonding. Every moment he met her. Every single moment he felt like his internal organs had been replaced by butterflies. Every single moment he thought that she truly loved him.

Now he could see it all, as bright as day. Every smile from her. Every kiss from her. The true face that lies beneath the mask of lies that she wore. Every word that were uttered by those lips. All lies. Full on deceit. A plan of a sociopath.

L.

 _last phone call_

 _"i want you to read it"_

 _he fell for the bait_

 _only one last tiny bit of distraction_

 _she removed his shirt_

 _she allowed him to remove hers_

 _"boys are so easy to distract" she could have thought_

 _he saw her breasts for the first time_

 _her naked body for the first time_

 _forget internal organs_

 _all his organs felt like they were on fire_

 _butterflies on fire_

 _and yet he could have known_

 _the timing of it all_

 _all those moments of foreshadowing_

If anything more than the betrayal, it was the fact that he actually didn't see any of this coming that hurt him a lot. The writer. The son of the woman who writes mysteries like nobody's business. The man who could pull out a _femme fatale_ out of a magician's hat when everyone least expects it.

God wanted the balance in the universe restored. The clash between the creators.

His mind kept rumbling with all such lightning fast conclusions and fact finding and theory analyzing that at one point everything was running on autopilot. They all moved so fast, that they were logically supposed to be illegible.

But Light understood it all. He understood every single bit of that information.

Takada was a bitch. She was a slut. She used him. She needed to destroy L. It doesn't matter whether it was professional or personal.

"It wasn't personal," the voices of every single fictional femme fatale in all the movies he had seen reverberated through the Nu. After it calmed down, a unique, soft, sweet voice said, "It wasn't personal, Light."

A glowing manifestation of Takada stood in front of him, naked, repeating the same words. "It was never personal, Light."

Light couldn't believe himself. This was how she always got her job done. A stunning model like body that the rational part of your brain just shuts down because of the overdose of the testosterone running a marathon in your body.

"I'll always be there for you Light," said another naked body.

"I love you," said another.

Within seconds, the whole of Nu was crowded with naked Takadas as they kept crowding on him. Light felt suffocated. They were everywhere. The nudity was not distracting enough from the radiating deception that was now so obvious.

 _"Please love me-"_

 _"-no love me-"_

 _"-I got here first-"_

 _"-touch your heart and you'll kno-"_

And then everything went still and quiet. The Takadas glowed until Light couldn't see anything but white light, and then he went to next stage of the Nu trip. Reliving memories.

He stood under a bus shelter. He still didn't have a physical body. In front of him, he could see his mother again. He could feel his hands reach out to her, pale, cold, helpless. "MOOOMMM!" he tried to shout, but he couldn't hear anything out of his mouth. "DON'T CROSS THE ROAD!" His mother stood there, looking straight through him, as though he never existed in her life before. She put one step on the road, and all Light could hear was the loud screeching of brakes as a truck slammed right on her face. Her face deformed like a baseball once it hits the bat. The blood vessels in her eyes bled out. Each and every detail of the gruesome image that Light was seeing in front of his were crystal clear. She fell under the tires of the truck as the tires squashed her skull and painted the black asphalt with a wide streak of red. Her skin was tattered. Her body unrecognizable. Her thumbprint safe.

Light ran out into the road and without a second, a car came and rammed onto him. Nothing actually happened. But the pain seared in his body. Red flashed everywhere. In the traffic signal. In the headlights. On the moon.

Another car. A truck. A bus. A bike. Another bus.

Each and every time, he felt the pain as though he was being tortured in a contraption based off the ones in Saw. Finally, he got to the mangled remains of his mother. He looked inside the truck and...

His father was behind the wheel, and next to him...

...was Kiyomi.

The entire world then blew to dust, only his father and Kiyomi standing in front of him, hand in hand, looking at Light as though he was a lost puppy who finally realized where he was.

They were back in the default setting of the Nu, without any hallucinations.

His father and Kiyomi. Standing there. Hand in hand.

His brain was trying to tell him something. Something he felt like he should have known a long time ago. A connection that he needed to make for all of this to make sense.

Of course. It's her.

Once Light made the connection, Souchiro and Kiyomi immediately started kissing each other, as she pulled him to the floor, both of them naked. The Nu immediately changed the environment to his father's office, with both of them on the desk.

"YOU!" Light yelled, unable to hear his own voice nevertheless. "NO!"

Suddenly, the whole room was flooded with blue light, with sparks flying everywhere. The windows of the room broke with torrent of water and flooded the inside. The room disintegrated, his father and Kiyomi totally undisturbed by the oncoming flood, as Light washed away back into the black Nu.

The water level didn't recede. It kept piling up. Light tried his best to stay afloat but after a while, he realized that his mind wasn't that strong enough to control everything. The conclusion was strong enough - Kiyomi is evil.

Light took one last look at the darkness and looked down at the thin transparent film that was obviously the surface of the gushing water. He eased into the water. He did not have any more energy to struggle with anything - in the Nu or in the physical realm.

"Can you hear me?" a voice reverberated through the Nu.

"I don't want to," Light thought.

The Nu suddenly ripped open, the light from outside blinding Light. He saw his father first, in tears, looking at his son with an open bottle of water in his hand.

"Can you hear me Light?" his father shook him.

Light was back in the same room. He was on the couch now, where L was sitting. His mouth was dry. He blinked twice to show that he was back. His father immediately smiled and let out a sigh of relief. "He's awake."

The room sat very still. Everyone were quiet, listening to Light's heavy pants. He was gasping as though there was a severe oxygen shortage in the world.

"We should call an ambulance, you know," Nate said from the very end of the room. "Just in case." He looked at L for approval.

L was sitting on the chair that was positioned perpendicularly to Light's body. He looked at Light intensely, almost biting his thumb off. His eyes moved to Near, and Near nodded. He pulled out a phone and called an ambulance.

* * *

Light's home was dark. None of the lights were on. The temperatures had dropped drastically tonight, or it was just his imagination. Light breathed heavily as he locked the door behind him.

He was surprised that Ryuk hasn't come out yet. It would be very interesting to listen to what he had to say. Light actually looked around whether his hallucination was actually around.

His head hurt like hell.

He sat on the couch, and held his head between his hands. He pressed it to ease his throbbing headache. His ears were still ringing from all the loud doctors who were everywhere.

A panic attack. That's what the doctors thought he had. That was pretty much obvious.

Girlfriend isn't one. Father isn't one.

A dark figure emerged from the shadows, "How are you feeling?"

Light yelled and threw a pillow at the dark figure. It was Misa. She caught the pillow midair, and threw it back on the couch.

"Misa," Light said, aghast. "When did you come in?"

"A few hours ago," she said, shaking the spare keys Light had given her a few months ago in her hands. "I heard from L."

"Heard what? There's nothing to hear." Light said. He pressed his temples, and Misa sat next to him, and put her hand over his shoulder. She gave him a quick hug. Those used to work back in rehab whenever Light was upset. She wasn't so sure whether it would work on him now.

"I'm sorry about Kiyomi," she sighed. "That bitch."

Light smiled. But it was not a normal smile. Misa didn't notice it at first, but after she noticed it, she got worried. A smile so wide. A smile unrestricted by restriction of his tight skin. A smile powered by powerful psychological forces. A smile of a man whose mind was spiraling out of control.

"Light, calm down."

Light stood up and removed his coat and threw it on the TV. He loosened his tie, and dropped it on the floor. "That fucking bitch. That fucking bitch indeed."

Immediately, he laughed. Maniacally. His head upright. His lungs heaving with air to bring out the unique maniacal laughter that Light always had, and Misa always feared.

 **"KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"**

Light had shivers all over his body as he laughed. It took him a while to calm down. Misa felt herself inching away from light, almost compressing herself into the couch.

"Give me my laptop," he ordered Misa. Misa immediately moved to the dining table where the laptop was, her eyes not moving from Light's trembling body. She gave it to him and Light plucked it from Misa's hands. He threw himself on the floor, and opened the website where his script was leaked. It was her blog.

 _Kiyomi Takada, Special Correspondent for the award winning Gossip Column._

 _ **Award winning gossip column. Heh. They give away awards for a man taking a shit on the street nowadays.**_

"She was a journalist. I thought she was a journalist. It never ever struck me to ask her what kind of a journalist she was."

"Light, you can't beat yourself up over this. There's no way you could have known."

"YOU THINK I DON'T _KNOW_ THAT?" Light yelled at the top of his voice, echoing in the empty house.

"Light," Misa's eyes teared up a bit. "You need to calm down."

Light scrolled down, and saw the PDF. 210 pages, and she scanned every single one of them and uploaded it to her blog.

 _i love you_

 _i love you for that smile of yours_

 _i love you for your honesty_

 _i love you for your patience_

 _i love you more than you could ever imagine_

The comments. 36 hours. 5000+ comments already. Most of them thanking her. Most of them appreciating her eye for leaking such scripts.

 _Villains are the heroes in this world._

Misa watched in terror as Light's jaw became as unhinged as his mind, before he let loose and laughed psychotically again.

* * *

L sat idly in his hotel, wondering what he was going to do next. He had a plan wherein he would change the story so that the leaked screenplay won't really matter.

No, no, no, what matters more is that Light isn't alright now.

Although L had contained within himself immense quantities of anger, all of it dissipated once he saw Light faint. "I've had enough blood on my hands. I don't want another person to have a psychotic fit because of my movie."

L nodded to himself, and picked up his phone to call up someone. The first rays of the sun shone through a small gap in the blinds. The phone rang before he could dial. It was Misa.

"Misa?"

"L…something terrible has happened," Misa said, trying to hold in her tears. "Light…Light is missing."

* * *

 **A/N : Yep, the plot is definitely moving. Please review!**


	18. Cosmogenesis

Sayu found it suspicious that the outdoors became too dark for a few just a couple of hours after noon. She opened the curtains and found the weather to be exceedingly cloudy.

She hated it whenever Tokyo became cloudy. The world becomes gray. It always drains the colours off everything. Especially clothes. Like there was a special kind of bleach that would turn everything grey. This made her life a little difficult because of her course. She moaned and sat back on the couch where her textbooks were open.

There was a knock at the door.

Sayu was suspicious. Light said that he would be busy for a couple of months after shooting began, so it couldn't be Light. Misa is the only other person who knows where she lives. If Light is busy, then so would Misa.

She grabbed hold of a baseball bat nearby and came close to the door. "Who is it?"

"Sayu, open up," the voice outside said. It was her father.

She opened the door immediately to find her father in a long coat his face drooped.

"Dad? C-Come in!"

Souchiro immediately walked inside and looked inside the house. He squeezed his eyes. He turned around and hugged Sayu. She felt a varied spectrum of emotions none of them lasting for more than a second. She had too many questions. Only a bit later she realized that her father's grip on her was a bit tight. "Dad," she asked, her voice muffled by his shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

"Light," he struggled to get the words out of his mouth. Sayu realized that he was crying. "Light's gone missing."

* * *

 _Nature walk._

 _Light walked to the balcony of the building, and sat on the railing, feeling the breeze on his face. When he opened his eyes, he found a young woman sat on a chair. She pulled a book from a small bag that she was allowed to have (the nurse thought it would help her heal faster), and began reading it._

 _He didn't do more than just observe her from the distance. He remembered her all too well. The one that shrieked like a train on acid when he tried to smile at her. But he found her a bit too interesting to just dismiss as a red hotspot of danger. And if he talked to her, there was always the danger of her crying out for help again sending him inside the sensory deprivation chamber again. It was not a pleasant experience._

 _She looked up from time to time, and their eyes met thrice. "Excuse me?" she finally said._

 _"Yes?" Light replied._

 _"Do I know you?"_

 _"Well," Light got of the railing and walked towards her. He dragged a chair next to her and sat on it. "I'm the guy who ran away once you started screeching. Remember?"_

 _She smiled a bit, and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't recognize you. I've screamed at a lot of people apparently."_

 _"Apparently?"_

 _"Amane Misa," she held out her hand. "Post-traumatic stress disorder."_

 _Light shook it. "Yagami Light, paranoid schizophrenia."_

 _The words made her pull her hand back a little. She regretted doing so as soon as she did it. "Sorry."_

 _"I'm a lot better now, don't worry. I won't go crazy on you, I promise."_

 **Like hell you won't.**

 _Light tried to ignore the voice that was behind him. This new human… hallucination was beyond annoying. He knew that that the creature wasn't real. The creature itself knew it wasn't real. And nothing is worse than a self-aware hallucination. Especially if you're a paranoid schizophrenic._

 _"Right," she smiled again._

 _"What are you reading?" he nodded at her book. It was covered with wrapping paper making it impossible for Light to find out anything about the book._

 _"Oh," she looked at the book placed on the table and picked it up again. "It's called Silence."_

 _"Never heard of it."_

 _"You wouldn't have. It's a historical book about a Jesuit missionary who endures persecution in the time period that followed after the Shimibara Rebellion"_

 _"Historical book."_

 _"Yeah. They're long and it's about people killing each other." Light chuckled at the comment._

 _Light looked at her eye closely. The brown in her eyes had a tinge of grey in it. Almost as though she was…_

 _"Are you on depressants now?"_

 _"I think so," she said almost immediately._

 _Light realized his mistake quickly, and he learned it soon enough to avoid another event. She isn't sane yet. She's high. Rather, she's low. She's totally catatonic. She doesn't have enough energy to trigger a fight or flight mechanism but if it wears off then that's it for Light._

 _"Okay then," Light stood up from the chair. "I'll see you later."_

 _"See you," she said weakly._

 _Light looked at her as he got back inside the building putting all effort in to turn the page. "A nurse must have helped her to the table," he thought and walked back into his room._

* * *

Near and Mello could hear the moaning outside the hotel room. They looked at each other. Near took another sip from his coffee, and Mello knocked the door. No answer.

Mello opened the door with the key that he had, and saw L watching porn on the large TV that they had. The sofa was surrounded with various varieties of cake, and Near was spooked by the sight.

"You could hear them fuck each other outside the door," Mello smiled.

L didn't look.

Near crossed the room with great difficulty without stepping on any of the empty coffee cups and plates. Mello licked the chocolate off his fingers, enjoying what was going on in the TV.

"This isn't going to work," L muttered. Mello took a deep breath. "Near and I wanted to ask you something."

Near looked bewildered. He had absolutely no idea what Mello was talking about.

L didn't look at either of them.

"Is something up with you?"

"What are you talking about?" L murmured in such a manner that he was just audible enough. "The best writer I've had in years went missing because a girl he knew leaks his script."

Mello and Near looked at each other. "And you're not bothered by that?" Near asked.

"Get to the point."

"You've become softer," Mello said. "You weren't like this with us."

The video on the TV ended, and L picked up the remote to get to the next video. Mello kicked his remote out of his hand.

L didn't react.

"L, what's wrong with you?" Mello said at a higher volume now. Near was alarmed. He stayed low, and continued collecting the empty cups. For a while, the clinking of the porcelain was the only sound in the room.

L stood up and walked into the bathroom leaving both Mello and Near with their mouths open.

In the bathroom, L looked at himself in the mirror. His eye bags were usually black-blue. Today it was black-red. He wondered whether that was because of the incessant TV watching for the past 29 hours. He opened the closet, and pulled a syringe out. It was already loaded with what he needed.

Holding the syringe in his mouth, he rolled his sleeve up. His arm was marked with spots near the elbow, and lines near the wrist. He tapped his left forearm twice and held his hand in a tight fist. The veins appeared automatically. Without further thought, he took the syringe from his mouth, and quickly inserted it into the vein. He pushed the plunger. He slowly exhaled as he collapsed onto the floor.

"You fucking idiot," he sighed as he lost consciousness and travelled amongst the star dust several galaxies away.

* * *

 _A few weeks after their second encounter, Light met Misa sitting under a tree. She wasn't reading a book this time. She was just looking into the distance. Light decided to approach her this time._

 _Meters away from her, he heard her talking to the air. He stopped for a while, and hid behind a nearby bush. Wonderful timing too, since that's when she looked back._

 _He listened keenly to what she had to say._

 _"Oh, yes, what was I saying?_

 _"You're right, but I can't trust her…_

 _"Wait, hold on, shut up._

 _"No. There's no way she is the one who can help me."_

 _And that was when Light realized that Misa had her own demon._

 _"Rem, I'm not prepared to listen to you anymore."_

 _Rem._

 _Another Ryuk._

 _Another person too weak to fight against their own subconscious._

 _Hallucination brought on by trauma._

 _Brilliant._

 _Light escaped back into the building, and into his room, and rammed his fist onto the wall until his hands hurt. The alarms and sirens rang again, but this time, Light didn't have a seizure._

 _He didn't know whether he was happy or sad._

* * *

Misa sat on the terrace of her apartment, watching the sky glowing from the city lights. She held her phone tightly in her hands, and wept heartily.

Some other person came up to the terrace and so she immediately wiped her tears away.

 _ **How are you feeling?**_

Misa turned around and looked at Rem.

Unlike Ryuk who looked hideous, Rem was actually well dressed. Putting things simply, she was a ten. With a perfect body (but for the distracting tattoo that runs along her jawline) and a good heart, Misa was easy to fall into the creation of her subconscious.

She hadn't appeared for a very long time. Misa knew that her brain was starting to really get low if Rem had appeared.

"Horrible," she replied.

 _ **Why? None of this is your fault.**_

"Is that the only reason why anyone should feel horrible?"

After a moment of thinking, _**Yes.**_

"Then you're wrong. Light is my friend. And what have I done so far to find him?"

 _ **Have you called the police?**_

"Near and Mello did that first thing. L's orders."

 _ **Then there's nothing more you can do.**_

"Don't be fucking _absurd_ Rem, there's always something I can do!"

 _ **Not in this case.**_

"Why not?!" Misa broke down.

 _ **Because you aren't a God. Neither is Light. Both of you are as human as human can get. And humans are revolting, disgusting creatures, and are incredibly flawed.**_

The words uttered by a person who looked like a fashion supermodel froze Misa for a while.

'Then why do you care about me?"

Rem looked up hoping to look at a starry sky. Her hopes were crushed.

 _ **It's because I love you.**_

Misa's eyes widened. She then held her stomach and started laughing, her legs twitching in the air.

 _ **What's so funny?**_

"That," she struggled to speak in between her fits of laughter. "Is the highest level of narcissism I have ever seen."

Rem grunted, and buried her face in her folded legs. Misa continued laughing, and took another gulp from her glass of wine.

"We don't get what we always want, Rem," Misa said, as she walked to the staircase.

 _ **Not always. But we do get what we want sometimes.**_

Misa took one last look of her, and walked back into her apartment.

* * *

 _Light walked down the hallway to get his mandatory weekly session with Dr Oshino. She still hasn't stopped apologizing to Light for whatever happened to him._

 _He hasn't completely understood her apology yet._

 **That's because you don't regret my existence, you see.**

 _Light was getting used to the constant chattering of this creature. Though Light visualizes Ryuk to be this mean person, he always couldn't help but create a back story for him. His tattered suit suggests that he was once a businessman. If he dropped out of it voluntarily, then he won't have a suit. That means that he was thrown out of it, natural or not, and then-_

 _Who was he kidding. He made him up in his head._

 _"I need to ask you some questions."_

 **Fire away, Fiiiire away.**

 _"Of all the songs," Light thought. "I'll ask you after I get back home. I don't need to look like a lunatic in public."_

 **You're in a mental asylum for fuck's sake.**

 _"Rehabilitation center."_

 **BIG-FUCKING-DIFFERENCE!**

 _Light sighed. Sometimes there are no telling people what to do. Especially if they are in your head._

 _He got into the waiting room and there he sat on the plastic chair. He could see through the frosted glass and could see the blonde sitting. After half an hour of waiting, she walked out of the room and nodded at Light. Light smiled back._

 _"Mr Yagami," the voice from inside the glass room came._

 _Light walked inside the room, and said, "Morning."_

 _"Good morning Light," Dr Oshino said, examining the data on the monitor as Light made himself comfortable on the chair. "How are we feeling today?"_

 _"Curious."_

 _Dr Oshino raised an eyebrow. "What are you curious about?"_

 _"How many people have you told to imagine their inner demons?"_

 _"I'm… sorry, I don't understand."_

 _"Amane. Did you tell her to do what you told me to do?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _Light frowned. "You should be arrested. Especially after what happened to me, you want to continue that line of treatment?"_

 _"Mr Yagami, you were a blip in a long list of lunatics with whom this treatment has been successful."_

 _"How many?"_

 _"I don't understand."_

 _"How many 'lunatics' have you treated using this… method?"_

 _"Three hundred and seventy-two, including you and Miss Amane," she said almost instantly, as though this answer was trained and imprinted in her mind._

 _"And I was the only blip."_

 _"Just the one."_

 _"How do you know that Misa isn't affected like how I was."_

 **I'm right fucking here douche-nozzle.**

 _"Because unlike Ryuk, Misa's inner demon is not hostile."_

 _"And you know that how?"_

 _"Misa has not had a stroke or a panic attack ever since Rem came into her life."_

 _"That's what she's calling it?"_

 _"Yes."_

 **Rem. That sounds like a really feisty chick. Is it a chick?**

 _"How much do you know about this Rem creature."_

 _"Very little. Misa is often protective of her identity."_

 **That answers it. I'm touching myself tonight.**

 _"And you're telling me that she hasn't had a panic attack since."_

 _"Not even one."_

 _"Even if I approach her and jolt her with whatever trauma that brought her in here."_

 _"I don't think you would do things that, Light."_

 _"Ha. Try me."_

 _Dr Oshino smiled coldly, and started scribbling in her pad, and pinged the bell. "Because she was sexually assaulted. Thank you for your time."_

 _Light sat there flabbergasted. He couldn't move. He turned around and looked at Ryuk who sat there, with his wide ugly bulging eyes widened and his mouth gaped open. Every single part of his body was shocked. A male nurse walked inside and escorted him back to his room._

 **Well that took a deep fucking turn, didn't it.**

 _"No shit." Light thought._

 **That's like… you know, that asshole. The guy was good once, then fell apart like a shit dropped from the skies. Shyamalan! Yeah, it's like one of his movies.**

 _"That's just overkill."_

 **You should… write a real fucked up story about this. Like _Gone Girl_ or… uh… _The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo_. Both became really fucked up movies too. You should do it, Light. Especially the rape part. I know some dudes who will fap to that.**

 _Light stood as soon as Ryuk made his passing suggestion. The male nurse asked, "What's wrong?" Light simply shook his head and smiled._

 _"I know what I want to do with my life now mom," he thought._

 _Hey! Don't I deserve some credit?_

 _"Shut up," Light whispered under his breath. The male nurse thought he heard something, but dismissed it immediately._

* * *

 **A/N : I'm not too sure whether depressants actually show colour change in the eye, but it just seemed a lot "artistic" to make it look like so. So don't bother pointing out that error. Also, Rem's real gender is a mystery since at some points she's a female, sometimes Shinigami are gender neutral - it's really confusing. So for this story, I've assumed that Rem is a female. A lesbian, no less.**

 **Please review!**


	19. Resurgence

Misa decided not to waste any more time crawling on the floor like a dying squid and decided to meet L. There was just one problem. She didn't know where they were staying.

She pulled pout her phone as she locked her down and made it downstairs, and called L. It went straight to voicemail. "L? It's Amane. When you get this message, can you please give me the address of your hotel?"

She pocketed the phone, and walked towards Sayu's new place. She gave her the spare key months ago in the event that Misa decided that she could live with Sayu. Unfortunately for her, she knew she was straight. Once she knocked Sayu's door and waited for a minute patiently before knocking again, she knew her house was empty. And L hadn't returned her call either.

She then went to Light's house, hoping to find Sayu or at least her father there. His house was locked too.

 _ **What are you hoping to achieve, Misa?**_

"Absolutely nothing."

While walking back from Light's house, a similar face brightened up as the face saw hers and started yelling, "MISS AMANE!" Touta ran full speed ahead and jerked to stop in front of Misa. "What's going on?" he gasped.

"Hasn't anyone told you?" Misa said as she continued walking towards the main road.

"About what?"

"The movie."

"Yeah, I heard there was some issues and that it was put on hiatus or something."

"Well, that's more than enough."

"Wait, whaaaat? More like, wait whhyyyyy?"

"None of your business. Now look Mr Matsui."

"Matsuda."

"Matsuda. You'll be contacted as soon as something happens, alright? But for now, take a vacation, take your girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever and go on a nice long break."

Touta stood on the road, confused. "Are you mad at me?"

"No, I have urgent work to do."

"Mr Yagami's house is locked. I thought I could ask him. I don't know where Sayu-chan lives, so I don't know what's going on…"

Misa turned around and looked at Touta. He was breaking down. She looked around and was glad that the streets were empty, she walked close to him, and gave him a hug. "I promise you, you'll be the first person I'll inform once I hear about something." Touta nodded. He was taller so the whole imagery of this looked out of place. "Now, I have something important to do, but I'll call you later okay?"

Touta nodded and Misa smiled in agreement.

* * *

"Hey, L. Misa wants to know where we are. What do you want me to do?" Mello said.

L was on the sofa, in a sleeping posture, his eyes closed. You would think that he was sleeping except Near and Mello witnessed him downing liters of coffee a few minutes ago.

"Give her the address," he said after much thought.

Mello nodded and texted Misa back. He flung the phone on the dining table, and walked towards L. "What's up?"

"Nothing."

Near was on the dining table, playing with a couple of puppets. He paid close attention to what L and Mello were saying but just seemed oblivious enough to not be bothered by Mello. "Pew pew pew" he mumbled, just to keep his act a tad realistic.

"L."

"What?" L said irritably. Mello sat on the ground, looking straight into L's head.

"You still haven't answered our question."

"I don't know of any kind of evidence that indicates that I am obliged to answer your questions."

"Oh yeah? I'm your student, a prized student no less. I can leave whenever the FUCK I want."

L opened his eyes and looked at him without moving his head. "Then leave. Now."

Mello sat with his eyes wide in complete and utter shock. "I don't need sniveling wannabe pseudo-therapists cum pyro technicians in my team. You had a job. Now you don't. You're not obliged to stay here. Get back to London in the first plane out of here, and graduate school."

"Wh…" Mello stood up, aghast. "What about Near?"

That was the breaking point for L. He rotated and swung his leg on the teapoy that was right in front of the sofa. The glass teapoy shattered from the strength of his toe that just touched the surface of the glass. The shattering startled Mello and Near. "Get out," L then said. "Both of you."

* * *

 _"Take 153!" the assistant yelled behind the clapper._

 _The actress on stage wept on the set. This scene was getting emotionally troublesome. The entire time, this L guy had been asking her to only follow the method. This was contradictory to what she was taught. Her grandfather had been one of those fortunate few to have been directly taught by Stanislavsky. She preferred Stanislavsky's method to the new method acting that a lot of people demand out of their actors._

 _The sprinklers on top of the set activated. It was supposed to be raining, apparently. Bright blue lights that flash from time to time. Lightning. It was blinding. Her wails echoed through the empty studio. Half the crewmen were yawning._

 _It was so frustrating._

 _And there was the director himself, his eyes dark and sunken, with his skin dark and sagging from under them. His eyes unwavering, his attention fixed, he was definitely displeased with how the scene was going._

 _153 times. And each and every time she had to remember her father's death. Recollect it. Assimilate it. Each and every time she does so, it felt like piercing her heart. That wasn't what bothered her completely, though. Each and every time she does so, the piercing weakened. Almost as though she was losing the intensity of the memory._

 _"Cut." L said. The rains immediately stopped. The normal lighting in the studio lit up, and the she stood up straight._

 _"Linda."_

 _"I'm so sorry, L, but I don't know what you want of me."_

 _L sighed, and pressed his nose. "I want the magic."_

 _Linda smiled. She burned inside. She was getting hungry. And angry. And she wanted to bite of L's head all at once so that she could satisfy both her hunger and anger._

 _"Fuck off," she whispered._

 _"Excuse me?"_

 _"I said FUCK OFF!"_

 _L sat there in silence, as the whole studio went quiet. Everyone looked at her, dripping wet yet boiling with anger._

 _"I'll do whatever I want to do. I've spent the last two days in this studio eating nothing but stale sandwiches and something that resembled tea. I'm tired of this L. I'm just tired. I give up. I don't give a fuck anymore. Because guess what? Unlike what you think, you're not a good director. You're horrible. You're abysmal. You're the very equivalent of a fish trying to go to outer space. Get a new job. Fuck. You."_

 _She panted after her long rant, and held her knees as she tried to steady her breath. Everyone stood in muted horror. L jumped from the chair he was sitting in and walked towards her. He brought his mouth close to her ear and whispered, "And guess what? I don't give a fuck."_

 _He snapped his fingers and simply walked out of the studio along with a man in a long coat and a hat that people assumed was his agent. Linda sat there drenched, humiliated, shocked._

 _The next day, her valet knocked the door of her caravan. No response. He pulled out his spare keys and opened it._

 _She had slit her wrist. There was blood all over the table. It was dripping. The suicide note was soaked in red. It had just the one sentence._

"It's because and only because of Lawliet."

 _L was arrested the next day. He was released on bail the day after that._

* * *

There wasn't a conveniently placed café. The movies were wrong.

Light waited patiently behind a newspaper seated on a bench next to a sakura tree. He carefully observed the entrance of the NHK building, waiting for Takada to come out. He wore a dark coat and had a duffel bag that contained a lot of items that he thought would be useful in this mission of his. Or what he thought was a mission.

Right now, he had no plan. Absolutely nothing. He wondered whether he wanted to ask her a couple of questions. Maybe yell at her. Try and tell her how wrong she was. But there was absolutely no concrete plan yet. He had imagined different situations regarding his surprise visit to Takada, and each one of them were perfectly planned. The question was, what would happen before and after the meeting?

A young girl walked out of the entrance and eyed Light as she exited. She started walking quickly. She then disappeared at the turning of the block. A couple of minutes later, she reappeared on the other side of the road, which Light found heavily suspicious. The girl looked at Light from time to time, and grew more and more nervous as she almost ran back into the NHK building.

This entire procedure repeated four to five times by the time the sun began to set. Light concluded that this girl must be some form of an informant, and walked away. The girl peeked outside the entrance and was relieved to find him missing. Except he wasn't.

Light had hidden himself in the alley opposite to NHK and it was so dark that you couldn't see anything in there. The girl thought he finally left, which was what he had planned for. He still couldn't find the first words he would utter to Takada after her betrayal.

Light asked himself over and over again as to what he would categorize this disaster as. Is this betrayal, or is this folly? Was he mad to trust an absolute stranger with a top secret document? Or was she too cunning with an ounce of psychopathy to manipulate him to get the script.

Takada walked out of the building.

She wore a beige long coat and wore sunglasses even though it was dusk. Behind her came the girl who went scouting for her. Light adjusted his black coat and started following both of them.

He hid himself behind a phone booth once he saw his prey board a bus at the bus stop. He cursed under his breath. He called a cab. "Follow that bus."

It cost him a lot of money.

Finally, hidden behind a streetlamp, he saw Takada enter a tall apartment that was guarded by a 50 something security guard. He considered his options. He could either beat the guard, and enter her house. Or, he could come up with something smarter.

He pulled out a cap from his back pack, and walked towards the guard.

"Delivery for Miss Takada," he said with a face as innocent as possible.

The guard eyed him suspiciously. "Leave it here. I'll make sure she gets it in the morning."

"I'm sorry, it's cash on delivery."

"Then come tomorrow."

"Can't do that." Light frantically started searching for an alternate plan. He looked inside the booth in which the guard was sitting. There were two sets of photographs. This was the night guard. "I came by this morning, and the day shift guy said the same thing. I'll lose my pay if I don't deliver this on time."

The guard scratched his head for a while. He then sighed, "What's the package?"

"I'm sorry sir, but our company has a discretion policy."

"Even if I'm the security guard?"

"Especially if it's the security guard." Light looked around for a moment. "Look, if you don't trust me, call her up yourself, and tell her there's a special delivery for her."

Light took a huge risk by saying this. He didn't know where Takada lived but he made an assumption based on the clothes she was wearing on that day that she must have cashed in whatever she got out of the company through which she leaked the screenplay. More deliveries.

The guard laughed. "You're alright. 64D. It's in that building. Next to the red Toyota. See that? Yeah."

"Thank you so much."

"I'll just inform her that you're coming. Your name?"

"Tsuki Yagami."

"Weird name.," he smiled and picked up the intercom, as Light ran towards the elevator that would take him to the D floor. As the elevator doors closed, he could hear the guard speak into the telephone.

64D was a long walk from the elevator. It wasn't a simple multi storied building that Light was used to. IT was a compounded with multiple structures. It was almost shaped like a labyrinth. Light made a mental note to slap the architect when he meets him.

Light chose to walk. He needed to plan everything perfectly. Every word he was going to say. Every word that would either make his day, or get him arrested. If he was running, he would only concentrate on running. And he would reach there faster. That was not his intention.

The halls were dimly lit with some yellow LEDs overhead. L would have complained if he was shooting here. Then slowly, he remembered that for the current moment, and what was about to happen, this shot was actually perfect.

He wondered for a moment what L was thinking right now. Was he secretly plotting his murder?

He looked lost. He checked his watch. It's been 20 minutes since he got here.

He looked at one door. "Finally," he sighed.

64D. He knocked on the door.

The door swung open.

All this while, he didn't realize how he was looking.

Takada was wearing nothing but a towel. She looked at Light and gasped. She tried to push the door close. Light put his leg in between on time. "I just want to talk, darling." She slammed the door on his foot for a couple of times before Light put his bag in the place of his leg. He pushed the door with all his might and she fell behind. He walked in and slammed the door close and locked it from inside.

"Are you ready to talk, darling?" he said with extra emphasis on the darling.

"Light," Takada whimpered as she scrambled on the floor, unsure whether to cover he body with the towel, or to rescue herself from a mentally deranged person in her room. "Calm down."

Light started digging inside his duffel bag that was on the floor. Takada looked around for something to hit him with. It didn't take her long to realize that she had to kill him now. Murder in self-defense. The sentence gets greatly shortened. Alas, there was nothing close by. The closest thing was a vase that was at least a second's worth of running from here.

Light zipped the duffel bag close. With nothing in his hand. Takada raised an eyebrow despite her clearly distraught face. "Let's sit and talk." Takada nodded unsurely.

Light did not know how twisted his face looked. The lighting made sure that his eyes glowed in red. His mouth was closed but exceedingly wide. He was one step away from a maniacal laugh.

* * *

L injected himself one more time. The pain was intolerable. It was as if the word psychosomatic pain was invented for him. Every single emotion he felt, he could feel it physically.

He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was sleeping a lot more regularly now, thanks to the drugs. The cost of his sleep was the forearm that now resembled a used pincushion. His skin was paler, but his eyes didn't have bags under them anymore.

"I shouldn't have yelled at Mello," he sighed. "I'm sorry," he said to the mirror.

The mirror showed him all that he was. Mello was right. L was becoming softer. For a reason. One can only tolerate sexual harassment suits and suicides so much. He didn't want to kill anyone anymore. He didn't want to make anyone mad anymore. He didn't realize that the young screenwriter who had approached him to make a movie was already unstable. Unstable enough to go missing after a woman who had betrayed him.

Women have always been the problem for him.

For some odd reason, Misa hasn't said anything to him yet. At least about his methods. This always struck L as something strange, but he never ventured too deep into this because he had a movie to take. Now he didn't.

"Shit," he thought. "What's going to happen to the movie? Do I really need to rely on my backup plan?"

The very thought gave him shivers.

He walked back into the living room and found no one there. He was alone. Again. And Quillish was supporting some other director in the west for the time being. He needed someone to talk to. Maybe he should just call Quillish up.

L was always divided about whether he truly wanted to be alone or not. It worked out pretty well for the entirety of his life, but now it seems that his life is changing. Mello was most definitely right.

There was a knock at the door. L assumed it would be Mello and Near. Second assumption: Misa. Third assumption: Light.

It was Misa.

"What do you want?" L asked, desperately seeming annoyed with her presence, although he actually felt quite glad that someone was here. A small voice somewhere also said that he felt extra glad that it was Misa, but the small voice was drowned out by Misa's voice.

"Did you hear anything about Light?"

"No."

"Okay… Did you hear anything from Light?"

"No."

"Are you going to let me in?"

L looked at his living room. It wasn't too messy. "Come on in."

Misa entered the apartment-hotel suite for the first time and looked around. L closed the door behind him. This situation seemed similar to her. All it would take for her to lose her sanity is the sound of the latch sliding upward.

L knew this situation far too well too. He chose not to latch anything. He realized how volatile Light was. And if a volatile Light made friends with someone in rehab, then there is a great chance that this person is volatile too.

He hoped nothing horrible would happen. That was all he could do.

* * *

 **Please review!**


	20. Catharsis And Repression

The cold winds of the oncoming winter rattled the windows in Takada's house. Light sat on the couch. Takada was in the kitchen hiding all the knives present. "Do you want something to drink?" Takada asked. "Nah," Light replied.

Takada washed her face over the sink. "You know what you're going to tell him," she kept repeating in her mind. She wiped her face using the towel and tied it around her much more tightly than before.

She seated herself in front of Light on a small stool. The lights in the room were warm and yellow. Light found it always contradictory to Takada's cold eyes.

He sat there wondering how he missed it all this while. Her eyes conveyed everything but affection. The woman was still wearing only a towel. Her trump card. The movies had been wrong. He could not remember even a single happy moment he spent with Takada. His memory kept replaying her last words to him before they had sex.

Light slammed his fist onto the hand rest. Takada was startled. "Explain," Light said.

Takada didn't fidget with her fingers. Her eyes didn't signify anything that would resemble her searching for an answer. It almost seemed like she saw this coming. It almost seemed like this entire session was rehearsed.

"It wasn't personal. Let me start with that. You need to understand that it was purely busine-"

"What the fuck do you mean that it wasn't personal? Of course it was. You fooled around with me just to get the script."

"Light, please listen to me-"

"Or rather, I think I'm wrong. A lot of people have been telling me _don't take it personally_ and I just don't get it. I thought taking it personally means that taking a particular argument or discussion and feeling personally and emotionally invested in it. I don't know, I think I have the rights to feel that this is indeed personal because you fucked me to get the script, slut!"

Takada looked at Light's deranged face, her lips sealed. She had it all rehearsed, yes. But she has never seen this side of Light before. She assumed that it would be bad. But this is catastrophic. She thanked her past self for hiding the knives.

Light inhaled deeply, and exhaled. "You were saying?"

* * *

Misa broke a coffee mug by mistake. L didn't react.

That was saying something. L has had a history of firing dozens of assistants for breaking anything that he owned.

Misa realized how malleable priorities can become once you are afraid. Her ankle was bleeding. She managed to maneouver the shattered pieces of porcelain by the time L got back into the living room. She picked up the broken pieces of the cup and took it to the bin. Just then, L walked into the living room. He was clearly shocked.

"What happened?" he asked in monotone. Misa immediately burst into tears. She tried to control the streaming tears by mopping it up with her scarf but it was to no avail.

L panicked. If she was having a psychotic attack right now, then there's nothing he could do. He is completely incapable of helping anyone out.

But, he had to try.

"I'm so sorry, L, I swear, I tried to avoid hitting it, but I slipped and…"

"Misa," L sighed. "It's alright." and he meant it. He leaned a bit and noticed the gash on Misa's ankle. "You're bleeding."

Misa rubbed her eyes and looked at her foot. "Oh, fuck." With the help of L, she limped to the bathroom where she washed the blood off. L found a first aid box, and gave it to Misa to treat herself. Misa sat alone in the gloomy bathroom covering a rather large cut with some cotton and gauze.

When she came out, L was eating cake. "I'm sorry," were the first words she said. "I hated that cup," L replied.

Misa nodded, and sat next to L on the couch. L didn't even stir. "What do you think is going to happen to Light?" Misa asked.

"I think you would know better. I barely knew him."

"While it's true I've known him longer; it doesn't mean I know him more. He talks to me whenever he wants to just talk about something that's o his mind. Whatever said and done, he respects you, and maybe sometime in the future he would become someone like you."

"And what makes you think I'd want that?"

"I'm sorry if I seem rude, but sometimes you just seem full of yourself. You started a whole school just so that people can become film makers like you."

"How do you know that?"

"Research. And also, Near told me."

L looked tense. "And what else did Near tell you about the school?"

"Why wouldn't you want Light to become someone like you?"

L finished his cake. He took the plate into the kitchen. Misa wondered whether she phrased the question wrong. She could hear L washing the plate. She sighed. "L, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," came the reply from the kitchen. "You're right to ask. The thing is, I don't have an answer." He stood next to the door, and looked at her with absolutely no sense of empathy. "But I think the closest I have to an answer is this. I'm a monster. And I don't want anyone else to become one."

Misa chuckled. "You're not a monster."

"Miss Amane, I know that I don't know much about Light, and I don't know much about you either. But now this. I know who I am. I know exactly what kind of a monster I am. I've chosen not to show you that side of me because I know what you both were."

"And what was that?"

"People of unsound minds. And I don't want to have another person killing themselves because I asked too much out of asking them."

L sat on the couch again, and didn't look at Misa who was looking at him the whole time. She looked worried. But more so because she didn't know whether she was having another stroke or because she hasn't felt this worried since forever.

* * *

Light couldn't stop shaking his leg. He always did that whenever he was tense. Usually it seemed like nothing more than a tremor. Now it seemed like a freaking earthquake.

Every time Takada paused for breath, every time she paused to find out whether Light was really listening, Light had only one reply: "I see." And it worked very well.

In all truthfulness, Light couldn't care less about Takada's work life. He believed her when she said that she was a journalist. He could imagine her in his brain theater, questioning people and figuring out the connections between stakeholders in multinational companies. He never, ever imagined her to find out who is sleeping with whom and to bring down relationships, and to find out how many nude scenes came out in a particular movie.

An internet journalist. Light could never see Takada that way. Until she leaked the script, of course.

"Come on, Light. Say something other than _I see_."

"What would you like me to say?"

Light looked around the house. No sign of Ryuk.

"Light, I'm sorry, but why can't you just move on?"

"So," Light scratched his head. "What we had – it never existed?"

"No," Takada said without remorse. "Never."

 ** _SHOTS FIIIIIRED!_**

"There he is," Light smiled.

He picked up the glass paperweight right next to him and flung it towards her. Of course he didn't aim it at her. But he intended it to scare the shit out of her. The paperweight missed her head by a couple of centimeters and smashed the flat screen LED TV. Takada fell of the stool and crashed on the floor.

She was scared – for the first time in her life.

* * *

When Near found Mello after hours of searching, he found him crying all alone in a park.

"Mello."

He sat next to him on the park bench, and handed him a bar of chocolate. Mello wiped his eyes, and grabbed it from his hand.

"Thanks," he replied, very inaudibly. "You're welcome," Near replied audibly. Following that was a long spell of silence.

"Where's Matt?" Near asked. "He's gone back to London. Didn't want to waste his time here, apparently."

"How come you haven't gone with him?"

"Because…" he sniffed. "Because I want to be with L no matter what."

Near waited patiently for an explanation. Mello sighed. "Do you know why he eats cake all day? Do you know why he crouches when he walks, sits, runs or stands? Do you know why he wears a full sleeved shirt all the time?" Near shook his head.

"His mind is filled with so much bitterness from the people he has worked with that the only way to counter the bitterness is by mass consuming sweets. He crouches all the time because of the weight of the guilt of all the people who have killed themselves because of him. He wears a sleeved shirt all the time because he doesn't want anyone to know about what his past has done to him. Heh. Century's greatest director, and he's as miserable as any human being can get."

Near sat silently, playing with his white hair. "I see."

"That's why I want to be with him always. To show him that he is not alone. And that he has someone who doesn't think he is a monster."

"What makes you think he's a monster?"

"I've heard it hum the song during the nights."

"Which song?"

"Monster. Imagine Dragons."

"Oh."

Mello continued eating the chocolate fiercely. Not once did the thought occur to him that Near might want a share of it. It didn't matter because Near didn't want a share of it. They sat on the park bench peacefully, and the by passers had absolutely no idea about the kind of violent history the boys on the bench had.

Suddenly a young man with a white shirt ran towards them with great speed. It was Matsuda. Once he reached the bench, he started gasping for air. "Calm down," Near said.

"Yeah," he said, his breath still irregular. "I found the script online. We have to tell L immediately." he gasped in between words.

"Why do you think we aren't shooting the movie anymore?" Mello said.

"We aren't shooting the movie? I thought it was just on hiatus or something."

"Yes," Near replied. "Permanent hiatus."

"What? Come on, we can't give up just like that! A movie is so much more than just the story after all! If that was the case, then Light could have just published it as a story. But no, this is a movie. And we have the greatest director of all time (Mello smiled at this). Come on, we should be…we should come up with ideas and solutions to face this problem and not just back away from it. You guys understand, right?"

"Mr Matsuda, your optimism is appreciable. But I'm afraid there's nothing we can do now. It all depends on what L thinks." Near played with his hair.

"Quitters," Matsuda mumbled as he walked away from them.

"Optimists." Mello chuckled.

"Annoying." Near replied.

* * *

Whenever people lose their sanity, they usually don't realize when they move across the line that divides the realms of sanity and insanity. Usually, when people walk across that line, the person suffers from amnesia. The brain actually feels guilty about what it's about to do.

Light could always realize when he was losing it. His fingers start tingling, and he could feel sparks flying from his wrist to his spine. And then he could feel his facial muscles stretch. And that's when he knows his body is on autopilot.

However, there were exactly two instances in his life when this wasn't the case. The first time, was when he threw his typewriter at his sister. The second time, was when he was talking to Takada. In these cases, there are no procedures. There are no steps. There are no signs. There is only blackout. Not the Nu blackout too.

Takada felt the blood drain from her face. She never had a source turn violent like this before. And he always led her to believe that he was would never lose it again. In Light's defense, he never knew that he would experience a black out again. The non-Nu kind.

At least during Nu, Light was still metaphysically conscious. There was something running in his mind. There was some processing. That didn't happen now. It was just plain black. No movement. No thought. Nothing.

Milliseconds before Light blacked out, he could only pray that he doesn't kill Takada.

* * *

 _There were lights everywhere. They were all blinding. And there was this man who was supposed to be bossing over everyone. But he wasn't. He was just sitting there, watching the cinematographers try and figure out how to do this particular shot. Lawliet's job here was an assistant director. Or as Barbara Smith (the director) called him, the work whore._

 _It didn't matter to anyone around here that Lawliet was actually only 16. Abusive words flew from one end of the studio to the other. Crewmen smoking pot, weed, crack and all the substances that Lawliet couldn't even imagine existed. He had tried for years to get into an actual studio and to work for an actual director. Unfortunately, the only one he could find was this man who specialized in crack comedy._

 _He sat far away from the actual set where the lights didn't blind him. He wasn't given a table, although everyone else was actually given one - even the other assistant directors. He was a boy. And age matters more than anything in an industry like this. Lawliet couldn't simply accept that fact._

 _He carefully positioned himself near the very end of the studio, next to a wall, where nobody could really notice him, but he could notice everyone. He crouched and sat, his knees touching his chin, as he held a small notebook that was quite thick. He opened a page where he had bookmarked, and there he had written the review for the movie_ The Social Network _which he watched in the theater yesterday. He read the 2000 worded review all over again, and convinced himself that that was going to be the kind of cinema he would like to make. Not crack comedy. He opened another page which was filled with geometrical diagrams with arrows and rectangles that signified camera movements and staging patterns. Mr Smith was a loser. His staging had no finesse and his camera was mostly still or exceedingly shaky. There was no art. There was no composition. And what better way to learn film making, than learning exactly how not to._

 _He made a mental note to buy a BluRay version of Stanley Kubrick's_ The Shining _while walking back home. Of all directors in history, Kubrick - according to him - was the only one with the mental strength to achieve what exactly he would like in his movies. Nolan, who made_ Inception _cuts a close second, although Lawliet really liked the movie._

 _Whatever said and done, nothing had influenced him more than David Fincher. He repeatedly played back all of his movies, four to five times a day, and try to decipher each and every scene; each and every shot, because he always believed that Fincher's extraordinary attention to ambience is_ "the thing" _that any film maker must do._

 _"Oi work whore!" someone yelled from near the set. Lawliet strained his neck to see who it was. It was another assistant director. He called himself Aiber, although Lawliet didn't really believe him. "Come 'ere!"_

 _"What do you want?"_

 _"I said come 'ere ye rugrat."_

 _Lawliet stood up and tightened his scarf as he inhaled to boost his self esteem. Aiber smiled at him and slapped him lightly on the cheek. "Alright you bitch. Get me some water." Lawliet looked over at the watercan that was less than ten feet away. "Get it yourself," he replied. "Ho ho ho," Aiber laughed along with his batch of minions. He looked around, and nodded at one of his minions. In seconds, the minion punched Lawliet in the stomach, and the whole group took him to the alley right outside the studio._

 _One of the punks threw his to the stone road inbetween two garbage dumps. Aiber leaned on the wall on the opposite side of the road, and lit a cigarette. The four minions surrounded Lawliet and cracked their knuckles and then their necks. Lawliet held his stomach as tightly as he could, trying to control the excruciating pain. He knew that everything that was coming up next was going to be much more painful._

 _The first one - Alvie - kicked his face that sent him to the ground completely. Now that Lawliet was horizontally oriented to the ground, he sent another kick to his stomach. Lawliet didn't shout. Alvie was disappointed. "Come on, Alvie. Let it all loose. Keep an image of that guy who keeps fucking your mom whenever your pop goes out for work." Alvie looked back at Aiber and flipped him off. He then proceeded to stamp the teenager under him on the face, shoulder and practically wherever his feet could reach. He wasn't actually aiming. "You. Fucking. Shit. Mother. Fucker." he yelled with every attack. The other four started laughing. "No, it's the other guy who's the mother fucker mate!" a man named Roger yelled. Alvie picked Lawliet up, and threw him to the wall. Lawliet held on to the garbage dump to balance. His legs were weak. Everything below his torso was weak. His head was bombarded with a migraine. Alvie then punched him in the nose which broke the nose and his knuckles. "FUCK!" he yelled as he recoiled his bleeding fist._

 _Roger nodded at Louis (who is actually Lewis, but wanted to sound more sophisticated, and thus renamed himself Louis) who then slapped Lawliet right on his cheek. The cheek turned red. He slapped it again. And again. And again. And then punched him right in the groin. "Bloody hell mate, the boy's only 16! He's gonna have his nuts drop off before he can do anything with it." someone else said. "Well he deserves it," Aiber replied. Louis then thrust his palm right onto Lawliet's nose already broken nose, and it started bleeding faster. Tears emerged from the boy's eyes. But no cry for help. Nothing. The boy was biding. The boy was learning. The boy knew when to strike back. "Alrighty then, who's next?"_

 _The others weren't any different. They just hit him blindly. The bottled up angers from their families, their girlfriends, the bloody government - everything was just let loose. The advantage of that was that they couldn't have hurt him as badly as they could have. The drawback was that it still hurt a lot._

 _Finally, Aiber came close to Lawliet, and looked at his bloodied face. The boy's eyes were as white as white could be, and his skin was paler but hidden behind the blood. Aiber held the burning cigarette next to him and whispered, "Feel the burn, boy," and pressed it against Lawliet's forehead. The migraine rose exponentially. The boy opened his mouth to ease the pain - it didn't make sense, but it worked - and then Aiber pinched his nose and a wave of pain swept through Lawliet that nearly knocked him out. He twisted the nose, and then released it. Lawliet fell to the ground (for the seventeenth time). Aiber came close to his ear and grinned._

 _"Get the point kid? I'm bigger. I'm stronger. And by the law of nature, that means you obey me. Got it?"_

 _And through the blood smeared face, the cold eye looked at him. There was no nod. Instead, there was a grin. That didn't go well with Aiber. One last kick. Then everyone went inside. Lawliet went home. And he didn't forget to buy_ The Shining _on his way back._

* * *

 **Okay, I realize, that there can be a small misinterpretation here. _This event_ did not cause Lawliet to become a perfectionist psychopath. Just saying. Please review!**


	21. Fallen Flowers

_Sayu hated coming to the rehab facility. It smelt like a hospital. The nauseating ambient smell of the disinfectant permeated through the vacant hallways through which Sayu was walking. This was supposed to be a mental institution not a pathological research center. She questioned a lot of things about this place. But she didn't have time to even roll those questions over in her mind this time. Dr Oshino had called her again._

 _"Will your father ever visit?" she asked, clearly looking worried, despite her attempt to hide it behind a smile._

 _"No," Sayu replied instantly, making herself comfortable on the chair._

 _Dr Oshino opened the file, and flipped over a couple of pages. Sayu fiddled with her fingers. Dr Oshino glanced at her sweaty hands. She sighed. She placed the file back on the table, and gestured Sayu to take it._

 _"Why did you call me today?" Sayu said as she took the file in her hands. She didn't want to open it. She looked at the woman across her, hoping she would get the message. She did._

 _"I'm sorry to tell you this miss Sayu, but I'm afraid I had misdiagnosed Mister Yagami before."_

 _That was_ not _what she was expecting._ "What _are you talking about?"_

 _"The treatment I gave him to help with his delusions didn't work because...he doesn't have schizophrenia."_

 _"Wait," Sayu cleared her throat, tears in her eyes, unsure of what this means. "Are you telling me you've been treating a sane person all this while?"_

 _"I'm afraid not. That's why I said I have misdiagnosed him. He isn't schizophrenic, in the strictest sense of the word. My treatment - to create a physical manifestation of his deeper, darker mind - worked. Only, in a manner I hadn't hoped."_

 _"What's wrong with my brother?" Sayu said silently, the tears flowing down her cheeks now._

 _"Are you sure your father won't visit?"_

 _"WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BROTHER?!"_

 _The guard standing by the door in the office was alarmed. Dr Oshino shook her head._

 _"Miss Sayu, I'm afraid to tell you that your brother is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder."  
_

* * *

Misa looked at L's cold eyes as he browsed the pay-for-view movies available at the hotel on the TV. It was transfixing. Almost hypnotic. He had such large eyes, but yet they seemed so small. Almost as though it was trying to save itself. The circles under his eyes suggested one thing, but the dancing streaks of the various shades of olive green on his iris suggested another.

She still didn't understand anything about him. "Why do you think you're a monster?"

"I told you," he said with an air of annoyance. "Because I haven't done anything to you yet. You barely know me."

Misa was confused. She turned her head by ninety degrees and asked, "Doesn't that just mean you're not a monster anymore?"

"Nothing of the sort," L said as he scratched his hair. "If anything, it only means one thing. It means now I'm extremely good at covering up my faults as well."

L's eyes only scanned the titles of the movies. He couldn't say for sure whether his brain was even registering the names of the movies. He just tried to control himself from making any kind of comment that would crack her.

But after the number of questions she is asking and the number of (borderline) rude answers that he has been giving, she hasn't cracked. That only put wide cracks in his theory.

After a short pause, "Have you ever loved somebody?"

L threw the remote to the ground. "Fucking dickheads. I pay tens of thousands of yen per night, and most of their movies are either Japanese or English rubbish." He lifted his bare feet and stamped the remote on the carpet repeatedly till it broke. He then flicked his feet twice to get rid of any plastic pieces stuck to his sole and then returned to his original position. He sighed and buried himself between his knees.

The remote was completely destroyed. Sure, with some effort and lots of time, it could be fixed, but it was completely destroyed. Misa looked at it in muted horror. Millions of questions rushed into her brain. The biggest one of them all was, "Am I the remote right now?"

She felt divided between wanting to press this further. She knew that deep inside, L had secrets that he hasn't told anyone. Maybe not even the one he might have loved.

The answer struck her like a lightning bolt sent from the heavens. She immediately exhaled, as though the answer punched her in the stomach. She looked at him, and saw him massaging his nasal cartridges.

"Of course," she thought. "That's just it."

She moved herself closer to him, and gave him a hug.

* * *

 _Dr Oshino and Sayu looked over the balcony at the lawn that was below. There were a lot of people walking underneath. Sayu looked around the entire lawn, and then looked at Dr Oshino._

 _"Nature walk. Studies have shown that walking on grass make-"_

 _"Where is he?"_

 _Dr Oshino looked worried, and then shook her head, and pointed under a sakura tree. And sure enough, Light was there._

 _He was sitting on a rock, and was surrounded by the fallen flowers. He had a notebook in his hand, silently observing everyone. He didn't care to look up to the people in balcony. He was tired of looking up and watching his worried psychiatrists look at him. There is only so much pity a man could handle. He was taking down notes in his notebook. Observing people. Observing how they move. Live research._

 _Sayu wiped away her tears and looked away. "How do you know that he... I mean he seems perfectly alright now."_

 _Dr Oshino put one hand over her and sighed. "I understand what you're thinking, child. I have a daughter who is as old as you."_

 _"Are you dead?"_

 _"E-Excuse me?" Dr Oshino's face became pale._

 _"Are you dead? Because my mom is. And is your husband permanently unavailable?"_

 _Dr Oshino maintained a stern face and forced herself to not wince from the obvious attack. She looked back into the garden. Sayu cleared her throat, "Stop the patronizing and give me an answer."_

 _"Multiple personality disorder is when a person has a sudden change in personality and once he gets normal, he has no memory of the shift."_

 _"How do you know it's a different personality?"_

 _"One week ago, he assaulted one of my nurses. She had to be sent to the general hospital. It was that bad. He was immediately thrown into a straightjacket – and with great difficulty, mind you – but he was still angry. I thought he had a psychotic fit. That's common in patients with schizophrenia. I tried to calm him down, so I kept repeating his name over and over again hoping he could get my attention. At one point he barked right back at me,_ Who the fuck is Light Yagami? The name is Kira! _" She paused for dramatic effect. It worked. Sayu looked curious, if not worried. "_ _Does that name mean anything to you, Miss Sayu?" Sayu shook her head._

 _Both of them looked back at where Light was sitting. He wasn't there anymore. "Hmph," Sayu chuckled. "It was just a couple of weeks ago I gave him the typewriter he threw at me. Could the typewriter act like a trigger of sorts?"_

 _"Unlikely, Miss Sayu. He's turned into Kira before and after he got the typewriter. If anything, he hasn't been turning into Kira as much. He has a hobby now. That's what helps him focus on something. The others here, however are people who want to become sober simple people. He's the only person who doesn't."_

 _Dr Oshino gestured her to enter the room once the bell marking the end of nature walk rang. Sayu nodded and proceeded to enter the room._

 _"Does he have friends?" she asked._

 _"He does, but…_ that _patient has asked for her confidentiality with anyone, even if they are Light's relatives."_

 _"_ Her _?"_

 _Dr Oshino did nothing but smile back at her._

* * *

If the room wasn't silent already, it would have been quieter.

To L, the room was _loud_. He could his breath and Misa's breath. Both of them were evenly paced and perfectly in sync. He could hear the clock tick. He could hear the air vents above the ceiling breathe. He could also hear the neighbors. Most of all, he could feel Misa's heartbeat travel through her hands that were currently hugging him.

It was driving him crazy.

He's heard of these chambers that were built in these acoustic laboratories where the room was designed to absorb whatever sound was emitted there. The room's walls were also sound proofed that prevented the sounds from outside to enter. It was definitely the quietest place in the world. L believed that this room was to prove a tough competition with those chambers.

He's also heard from many that people go crazy there. The lack of sound makes the person sitting in there more aware to sounds he's never heard of before. One could hear the spongy breathing of the lungs, the gushing of blood, the rumbles in the stomach and the creaking of the joints. People who stay past this point eventually grow insane by the cochlear fluid moving in the inner ear. And that's just after fifteen minutes of sitting.

Misa was hugging L for about half an hour now.

The silence was deafening.

* * *

 _Sayu stood near the reception counter waiting for someone to occupy it. She drummed her fingers on the top. A male nurse immediately ran towards the desk._

 _"I've been waiting here for a whole hour!"_

 _"I'm so sorry miss. How may I help you?"_

 _"Dr Oshino said that I could visit my brother, but I can do so only if I have a visitor ID."_

 _"Oh, right," the male nurse said and nodded. He pulled out a register, and started writing something in it. "Your name?"_

 _"Yagami, Sayu. I'm his sister."_

 _"Alright. Sign here please? Thank you. You need to go to the se_"_

 _"Seventh floor, room 229. Thank you."_

 _Sayu ran towards the closing elevator as she wore the ID around her neck. The strap was yellow. She noticed that the doctors and nurses had blue straps. Either it was coincidence, or these straps are actually colour coded. The elevator was empty. Her only company was the operator. And even he didn't say much. His body language suggested that he didn't want anything to do with anyone. The elevator pinged. "Seventh floor" the synth voice said. "Thank you," Sayu said and walked out. The operator did not reply._

 _She walked straight and turned right. It was a small hallway. She made a rough guess that this floor did not hold any claustrophobic patients. She then smiled to herself. Light always liked small spaces._

 _She looked at the room that was labelled 228, and sure enough, she could hear the loud clicking of typewriter keys from inside. She took a deep breath. She knocked on the door._

 _"Come in," came the voice. Tears immediately appeared on her eyes. It's been so long since she had heard his voice._

 _She twisted the door knob and entered his room._

 _The room was fairly big, but was painted completely white. White flowers on white vases. White pillows, white sheets. White window panes. White fans. White air conditioner. White table. White clothes. Black typewriter._

 _Light looked at her and opened his mouth wide. "Sayu!"_

 _"Onee!" Sayu broke down as she ran and hugged him tightly. Light almost fell off his chair. He hugged her back tightly._

 _"What are you doing with the typewriter?"_

 _Light slid the handle on the typewriter, and pulled the paper out. He then pulled his drawer open and took all the papers inside out of it._

 _"I'm writing a story," he said and added the newly finished page to the stack. "Ooh," Sayu replied. "Mom would be proud. Can I read it?"_

 _Light frowned when Sayu mentioned their mother. "No. Not yet."_

 _Misa smiled unsurely. "Ooookay, what's it about?"_

 _Light tap the stack of papers on the desk exactly four times and put them all into his drawer. He then took a small piece of plywood and placed it on the stack of books. A false compartment. He then slid the drawer close. He smiled at her. "Not telling."_

 _"Forget the story, what the hell did he just do?" she thought. "What was that?" she said._

 _"Hm?"_

 _"Why did you just...did you make a false bottom?"_

 _"Tch tch tch," Light shook his head. "So many questions."_

 **Tits and brains! JACKPOT! Wait, is it like incest cuz I'm you and you're her brother and stuff.**

 _"Fuck off," Light whispered angrily, hoping Sayu wouldn't hear. Sayu unfortunately, did. "What?"_

 _"Nothing, nothing."_

* * *

Near decided that it would probably be best if Mello and him welcomed Matt at the airport. And ordered him to take the next flight back to London.

They waited outside the airport. Mello argued that it would be better if they carried a placard that said _GO HOME MAIL JEEVAS_ but Near cleverly destroyed that argument by saying that they might be arrested for antisemitism.

"How would they know that Matt is a Jew, though?"

"I don't know. Mail Jeevas sounds pretty Jewish."

"Pfft. It doesn't even make sense," Mello sighed, pulling out a cigarette. "You can't smoke in public," Near interjected. "Shut the fuck up Near, you're wrecking my thought flow!" he said as he pocketed the packet. "It doesn't make sense because Japan was a part of the Axis powers. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It's weird they would have so much concern for antisemitism."

"Well, smoking in public was legal almost a decade ago. It's illegal now. That's how the world works. Also..." Near twirled his hair and smiled. "Don't say that out loud. You sound like an imbecile."

Mello looked astonished for a while, and then smiled again. Near laughed a little. "We've never had this much fun together, you know."

"We should hang out more often."

"We should."

* * *

 _Lawliet came to the set the next day to find that everyone were packing. No one told him why. He immediately thought of three reasons._

 _One, someone died._

 _Two, Barbara Smith died._

 _Three, outdoor shoot._

 _He wished that it would be the second one, and he knew that Barbara would never risk an outdoor shoot ("too expensive!" in his words) so that leaves only option one. If that was the case, he wished that that_ someone _was Aiber._

 _"What's going on?" he managed to ask one of the dolly grips who just finished packing the dolly tracks. "Outdoor shoot," he replied._

 _Lawliet didn't know whether to smile or not. He decided he would have fun today before leaving his home today. "No use crying, no use dying."_

 _The best part about that day was, Lawliet didn't pay attention to anything that happened during the actual shoot. He kept looking over the fat notebook in his hands filled with notes he jotted down while watching_ The Shining _for the third time yesterday._

 _He healed fairly quickly. His nose was bleeding a bit from time to time if his breath was heavy. His left arm was plastered and he carried a slight limp. When asked about who did this to him, he came up with the lamest excuse ever._

 _"Overhead lamp fell on me."_

 _Lawliet scribbled into his notebook._

 _"IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT."_

 _He regretted making up that excuse. He always thought he was capable of something bigger._

 _Sometime like "The cameraman was dollyzooming and failed to see a young sixteen year old on the tracks."_

 _"I've lost my creative powers," he whispered as he hit his head with a book._

 _This wasn't the first time this happened to him. Any time he experienced physical damage, his mental abilities subside, which unfortunately includes his creative faculties._

 _"What happened boy?" he heard a voice. he removed the book from his face and looked up at him. It was Barbara Smith. "Overhead lamp fell_"_

 _"Yeah I know that old fucking excuse. I've used that excuse a million fucking times myself. What_ really _happened to you?"_

 _"I got hit."_

 _"...by?"_

 _"People," Lawliet said impatiently. "Don't you have a movie to shoot..." he said and cautiously added, "Sir?"_

 _"Break time. Who hit you?"_

 _"It doesn't matter."_

 _"Oh really? It doesn't matter? Oh look at me, I'm a teenage prodigy who wants to be a director and people hit me because they're jealous, boo hoo, I've had a tough life and yet I've risen like a mother fucking phoenix - is that it?"_

 _"Pretty much verbatim," Lawliet thought. "No." he said._

 _"Look at me. I said_ look at me _. Look me in the eye. What matters to you, boy? You get hit, you don't care. You fuck up one job, you don't care. What in the name of the fucking God matters to you?"_

 _Lawliet looked at him in the eye. The cold stare. The one that made people shiver in the years to come. Only he didn't know it yet. But he knew that this stare sent people exactly the message he wanted to send._

 _"The drowning ship you call a movie."_

 _Barbara chuckled as he put a cigarette in his mouth. He held on out to the young boy in front of him. He shook his head. He lit his cigarette and and took a deep puff of nicotine inside. It calmed him down. "Alright boy. Why?"_

 _Lawliet tenderly flipped the pages of his notebook to the section he had specifically demarcated for this production. The rest were private research. He handed the bookmarked section to Barbara who took it and observed it quietly._

 _His face was just relaxed first. Soon it tensed up. It then turned into something Lawliet wasn't able to categorize into either a frown or a smile. He took another puff of cigarette and threw it to the ground. He shut the notebook close and threw it on the boy's lap._

 _"Well that hurt," Barbara said, referring to the side notes of his idiocy on set. "You don't care about others' feelings. That might even be a good thing for ye. I'll tell you what though. You're going to suffer. Trust me."_

 _The boy nodded timidly._

 _"Get back home. I'll see you tomorrow in my office at 6 in the evening. Got that?"_

 _The boy nodded and scurried back to his house._

* * *

 **This chapter was ideally speaking a filler. The _next_ chapter however, is going to be the end of the second act in this story. Which is why I'm looking forward to writing the next one, while procrastinating the completion of this one.**

 **Please review!**


	22. How Brittle The Souls : Part I

**A/N: Okay, with this chapter I'm starting the end of this particular arc of this story. This is the first half. The second half will be published soon. After these two chapters, I shall begin the next arc, and soon start approaching the climax of this story.**

 **But anyway, the more important thing is, how I have failed to acknowledge all my reviewers publicly. This story has become _the_ story which has the highest number of reviews of all stories that I have written. I want to thank all my reviewers.**

 **Starting with _petit-perdant_ whose instant review after publishing the first chapter was what made me continue writing this story. Without your review, this story would have fizzled out (out of my brain I mean) in three chapters.**

 _ **Mailliekins**_ **for giving me proof that more than two people (who I don't know) actually _read_ this story.**

 _ **FreyrFnk**_ **and our little argument about the currency exchange.**

 _ **Tisifone**_ **who made me believe that this story actually has enough elements required to evoke an _anxious feeling._**

 _ **bookgirl98**_ **who believes that this story deserves more reviewers (so do I, but I suppose I'm a bit biased).**

 _ **kirasmatic, angel1143**_ **for being truly shocked by the disasters that are happening to Light, and making sure that they let me (and the world) know that they are truly shocked.**

 **And finally _Kaizen Kitty_ for your _eleven_ reviews and for making me realize how unfair I have been to my reviewers.**

 **I hope this story isn't boring you.**

 **Anyway, back to the angsty pessimistic world of this story.**

* * *

None of it made any sense.

Three hours.

Just three hours.

The things that happened in three hours.

The girl was pinned on the couch. Her spine was numb. She couldn't move any of her limbs.

 _Tap tap tap tap tap._

She was too afraid to even remove the hair falling on her face. Everything she could see what obscured by a couple of strands of her brown hair. The air grew chiller by the second. It was growing stale. She couldn't even breathe without letting the air sending shards of ice through her nose.

Winter was weeks away.

 _Tap tap tap tap tap._

What the hell was-

His cap was on the floor. His face was shadowed by the hair falling over his forehead. His left hand was massaging his left knee. The other hand - rather a finger on that hand - was tapping the handle of the chair he was sitting in. The tapping had perfect timing. It wasn't like the ticking of a normal clock. It seemed more like the ticking of a clock on steroids.

 _Tap tap tap tap tap._

"...Light...what are you doing?" she asked eventually.

Light paused his tapping, "Hm?" and continued tapping. A bit faster this time.

Takada sighed. She was scared because she didn't know what to anticipate now. The only logical conclusion as to what Light was about to do now was to kill her - and she did not want that to happen. She was not prepared to die.

 _Tap tap tap tap tap._

"Light, stop it."

"Stop what?" he said, _Tap tap tap tap tap._

"The..."

"...the?"

"Stop it, stop the tapping!"

And the tapping stopped.

Light smiled. The upper arch of his smile was highlighted among the shadows that plagued his face. "So let me get this straight. You asked me to do something, so I did. Do you understand what that means?"

Takada's nails started burying the wooden stool. Her nails were sharp enough, and she was scared enough.

"Ask me, if you don't understand Takada. Ask me what that means."

The nail was digging even deeper.

"What do you mean, Light?"

"Stop calling me _LIGHT!_ " he yelled and slammed his palm onto the handle. "Light is a fool. A fucking fool. Too afraid to come to terms with who he really is. Fuck. A silly shit-in-the-pants fuck."

He then drew himself closer to an immobilized Takada and whispered. "Call me Light one more time, and I'll slit your fucking throat. Do you hear me?"

He could only hear her whimpering.

"Do. You. Hear. Me?" he enunciated.

He could swear he saw a tear escape her eye. That only made him smile more.

The cuckoo clock struck 9 o clock and the cuckoo cooed like a fire alarm.

He slapped her off the stool with the back of his hand.

* * *

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Misa whispered, but it sounded like she was speaking through fifteen microphones that had connected itself to a million speakers.

L sat like a stone.

"Why?" L asked.

"I want you to know that I am here for you."

L started noticing finer details about his actress. Well in any case, ex-actress. With Light missing and the screenplay on the public domain, there was no way he was going to make that movie.

Urgh, the movie. The movie he had such high hopes for. The movie he was so damn sure would rehabilitate his image among the people. The movie which would give his PR guy a vacation. The dream movie. The movie he swore he would-

"Fucking hell. You're deflecting again." he told himself.

"And I want you to understand, that I do not think that you are a monster. And I think it is important that you know that." she whispered into his ear.

Her warm moist breath ruined L's brain. It sent out all kinds of signals. Error signals. The kind one would get when a computer overheats. When a virus attacks the computer. His brain had never thought it would encounter such a signal.

"No, wait, what? Friend. Friend. Friend. She's an actress. A professional actress. Friend. Friend. Professional. Friend.

"She's a rape victim for hell's sake. The last thing a rape victim will be, is promiscuous.

"Friend. Not..."

L noticed his knee. He noticed her hand. They were far away. There wasn't any actual physical contact - except for the hug. She then pulled herself away from him.

"Sorry," she said, and cleared her throat. She looked up at the clock. It was 9.

"I should be leaving now. The landlady gets worried if I come home late."

L nodded, not looking at her.

"See you tomorrow?" she asked.

"Definitely," he nodded.

She smiled as she shut the door close.

And L realized that he was holding his breath for over an hour when he exhaled.

When Misa was walking through the reception, she saw Mello, Near and Matt (pulling a heavy trolley). She just smiled, nodded and walked on. The trio looked bewildered.

While in the elevator, Mello said, "Was that Misa?"

"That was Misa." said Near, and Matt concurred with a nod.

"She was smiling."

"Yes, she was."

"Is there anyone other than L who is in this hotel that she knows?" Matt asked.

"Light went missing, so can't be him." Near said.

"So she should have visited L." Mello concluded.

Following the conclusion, there was nothing but the completely annoying elevator music that filled the _soundspace_ of the elevator till they reached their destination. The speakers pinged and the doors slid open.

"Holy fuck." Matt chuckled. "The world's coming to an end."

* * *

Takada scrambled on the floor and held the handle of her couch to stand up. She could feel Light's palm burn on her cheek. It was no doubt that it turned red. Almost as though someone slapped her with a branding iron. Light kicked the stool that it slammed against the wall. The legs came of - one of them split into two - and the seat shattered into numerous pieces. The paint on the wall cracked on impact. Takada hid herself behind the couch, while looking around for objects she could use as a weapon. The vase that she saw first when he entered. But it was too far away.

Damn it. He said he was here just to talk.

"Oh, I know what you are wondering," he smiled. "He said he was here just to talk. Well, the truth is, _Light_ was here just to talk. Not me. Never me? Me? Less talk, more action. It's a real fucking pity Light can't be like me."

"Great," Takada snorted. "Now he can read minds too."

"Stay back!" she yelled. She knew it was useless. But she was not going to go down without a fight. She has to try and do something that would stall him. Her boss always said that her greatest strength was her mouth. Well, after her breasts. But for now, her mouth should work well. If that fails, then she needs to unleash the sexual beast inside. Assuming that he doesn't unleash his.

The towel that was wrapped around her was as nervous as she was. The more she shivered, the more it seemed like it was going to fall off. To top all this, she was sweating.

The insides of her body felt like it was freezing, and here she was, sweating. The sweat wasn't helping the towel from keeping up. She tugged it so that it wouldn't fall off.

Light loosened his tie even more, and threw it on the floor. "Ohhhh, that's so cute! Preserving your body's modesty after you used it to get work done from Light? That is just...so hypocritical I think people need to invent a new word. Oh! Or maybe there is a word, and I just don't fucking know it yet!"

He made his hand into a make-believe phone and put it to his ear. "Hello? Is this Oxford? Yeah, either my Japanese is getting weak or my language doesn't have a word that sorta directly describes what I'm feeling right now. Can you help?" A pause. Takada's eyes flew across the room, plotting her escape route.

"Oh!" Light smiled, nodding towards Takada. "Oh, you can help me? What's the word? Di- _what_? _Dissimulation_? Thank you so much!" He chucked his make-believe phone away.

"Now, I shall dub thy royal ass as _The Dissimulator_."

He removed his coat and dropped it to the ground. He picked up the TV remote and began examining it, as he approached Takada. Takada didn't trust him anymore. She didn't want the distance between her and Light to decrease any further. She wanted to run, but her fear had stunned her feet. All she managed to do was take one step at a time away from him.

"Pretty heavy for a remote, don't you think? How hard do you think this would hurt you?"

"Please, _please_ calm down." Takada cried, tears rolling down. She wiped her face with one hand, the other holding the towel.

Light aimed the remote at her, as Takada's body tensed. He flung it straight at her.

The sentence _he flung it straight at her_ might not be accurate enough. He did fling it at her. Although, his aim was the hand that was holding the towel from falling apart.

The remote struck her hand and immediately she flinched, and the towel fell. Kiyomi Takada was as vulnerable as one could get - maxed out physically and mentally.

Light's grin grew wider. "Bulls-eye!" He then exploded into a maniacal laughter.

He had laughed maniacally before. He had laughed when he had all screws in his head lose before. This laugh was unique. It didn't just show was deranged he was. It didn't just show how unhinged he was. It didn't just show how _evil_ he was.

It was what one would do when one uncorks a bottle that had contained all the anger in the world against anyone for decades.

It was _the_ laughter.

 _death surrounds us all_

Takada covered her shivering breasts the best she could with her hands. She tried to pull the towel with her leg. Light swiftly noticed it and stepped on the towel with his leg. Takada looked up miserably. "Tch Tch Tch," Light said. He then pulled the towel. Takada almost tripped.

She ran towards the bedroom and Light chased her. She slammed the door close on his toe. "ARRRGHHH!" Light growled. "YOU PIECE OF FUCK!"

He pulled the door with immense strength and the door slammed at a nearby closet. He kept the door open, and pushed Takada onto the bed.

"This," he snickered, "should be really, _really_ fun."

Takada hid herself with a pillow. She threw the alarm clock on the nightstand at Light. Bang.

Light's forehead bled as Light fell to the floor and writhed in pain. He pressed his finger right on the gash as the blood spread all over his hand.

"YOU..."

He paced himself towards her. Takada plugged the desklamp out and aimed it at him.

"FUCKING..."

She threw it at him. Light dodged it. Takada shrieked.

"BITCH...!"

He pounced on her, pinning her to the bed. He put his knees on her forearms, and used his legs to pin her hands. He sat on her torso, and pulled a pillow from nearby. He removed the sheet and stuffed the sheet inside her mouth. He looked at the tears flowing out of her eyes and licked her cheek, grinning.

He whispered into her ear, "You and me - we're going to have some fun for the next couple of hours."

* * *

The room was messy with books that Matsuda had borrowed from the local library. Method acting. He knew that's what he would need in order to permanently impress L.

Although from what Misa said, there might not be a movie at all.

"In any case," he told himself. "I need to make myself a good enough actor that if he ever makes another movie, I will be the first person he approaches."

He spent the last four hours searching for his copy of the screenplay. In this den of books, he couldn't find it anywhere.

There was one place where he could do it.

He went online and searched for the blog in which the screenplay was supposedly leaked. And he was shocked when he realized that all those rumours were true.

A mammoth of a pdf file, it was exactly identical to Light's screenplay. And now Light was missing. L had stopped making the movie. Misa is refusing to answer his calls.

And he lost his last chance at gaining his father's respect.

He immediately lost appetite to act anymore. There was way too much conflict in this business. He always wanted to be an actor. And to his credit, he was a really good actor too. But if this industry always packed this pressure, then he was afraid that he might buckle under the weight of the industry.

He read about the author of the blogpost. Kiyomi Takada. He opened her _About Me_ page and she had a telephone number (like an office number) but no address. He opened his phone and phoned a friend who worked at the police department.

"Touta, I'm busy," said the voice from the phone. "Whatever you want to say, make it quick."

"Okay, hold on, just listen. I have a telephone number. Can you pull the address from the database?"

"What is this?"

"Stuff. For the movie."

"What movie? I heard the script got leaked online."

"Yeah, yeah, that doesn't stop me from researching my role."

"...what?"

"Just...no questions asked, okay? Please, get me the address."

"Okay, hold."

Matsuda impatiently rapped his finger on the desk.

"Touta, you here?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here."

"Okay, grab a pen."

* * *

 _Light had brought his typewriter to the gardens now. He seemed to be typing non stop. Misa observed him from her room. Once her nurse said that she could go outside for walks, she decided to ask him about it._

 _"Hi," she said._

 _Light stopped tapping furiously, and looked up at her. "Hello." and resumed typing._

 _"What are you typing?" she asked and sat next to him._

 _"A story."_

 _Misa laughed quietly. "Is something the problem?" Light asked. "No. For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would ever want to write a story. Or make a movie. Or do anything on those lines."_

 _"I'd never write for a movie." Light said in between taps.  
_

 _"Heh? Is that a rational or an irrational decision?"'_

 _"You seem to have regained your mental capacities again."_

 _"Oh, no. I used to be chirpier than this. This new form of me, while interesting, is not_ me. _"_

 _Light stopped typing and put his typewriter next to him. He pulled the paper out and started placing it inside a small opaque folder that Dr Oshino provided him with._

 _"You know, you never really told me why you're here."_

 _"Dr Oshino didn't tell you?"  
_

 _"Not in detail." he looked at her._

 _"Well, truth being told, I've never told what happened to me in detail to_ anyone. _"_

 _"You can tell me."_

 _Misa strained to smile. "What makes you think I will?"_

 _"I thought we were best friends now."_

 _Both of them sat in silence as the wind blew and the leaves on the tree above them rustled._

 _"I'd never write a movie because my mom's life spiraled downward after writing for movies. She died_ because _she started writing movies. Movies my father produced."_

 _Misa stood up quietly and started walking away, "If you thought your trust in me results in my trust in you - you're wrong."_

 _After a while, she stopped and turned back. "Why do you write stories then?"_

 _Light smiled and picked the typewriter up again. "So that I don't forget my mom."_

* * *

Matsuda took a taxi to Takada's place. Misa was still not picking up his calls. And honestly, he was too frightened to call L. He decided that he would just text her.

i'm going to takada's (the leaker) house to check if light is there. you should probably come too.

He sat in the cab in the middle of the night, as it sped through the main roads of Tokyo. He flipped the phone in his hand hoping for a reply from Misa. There was none. He cursed under his breath and ordered the cabbie to drive faster.

"If Light was indeed going there, what would he have done?" Matsuda thought. "If Light is already there, what is he doing?"

* * *

He grabbed her breasts tightly, evoking louder muffled screams from Takada. He twisted her nipples and the screams became louder. She started hyperventilating. He then rocked back and forth on her torso, his weight crushing her stomach.

"Please don't vomit," he said. "If you do, then you'll probably die asphyxiating on your own vomit. That does not sound like a pleasant way to go."

He stopped rocking once he pictured what death by asphyxiation would look like, and leaned towards her breasts. Her legs violently flung in the air in some desperate effort to free herself. He grew very, very annoyed at that.

"Stop," he whispered.

 _tentacles of an octopus_

She didn't obey. She started trying to free her arms as well. She shook them as much as she could. She wasn't doing much damage but she could notice that Light was getting weaker.

"Stop," he almost whimpered.

 _slammed the breaks_

 _screech_

 _screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech_

 _chalks screeching on a black board_

 _flickering lights_

 _traffic lights_

 _broken bottles of vodka_

 _burning tires_

 _dead bits of octopus_

 _everywhere_

She started twisting her hands and her wrists grew red from the pain. Her eyes were redder. Tears pooled near her ears on the bed. She stopped yelling for five seconds. Then she started yelling again.

 _octopus struggling_

 _body writhing_

 _body on the road_

 _road kill_

 _octopus_

 _human_

 _octopus_

 _human_

 _what_

 _is_

 _the_

 _difference_

 _i_

 _do_

 _not_

 _know_

 _any_

 _more._

"STOP IT!" he cried and punched her in the face. She wasn't knocked out.

 _ **"GYYAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"**_ he yelled and punched her.

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and-

 _loud sirens_

 _pulsating noise_

 _red lights_

 _lights everywhere_

 _flickering lights_

 _dying_

 _dying_

 _dying_

 _dying_

-over and over and over and over, until his fists were bloody. He pulled the pillow cover from her mouth. A weak groan escaped from her vacant and dry mouth. And then a chuckle. A raspy chuckle.

He headbutted her and surely, she became unconscious.

* * *

The taxi pulled over next to the apartment. Matsuda paid a fat wad of cash and walked towards the gate. The gate was locked. The watchman was asleep. He looked around. He jumped over the gate and ran towards the staircase.

64D. That's what the address said. He did not assume the complexity of the building but it didn't take him long to find it. He knocked on the door once.

No reply.

He wiped a bead of sweat from his eyebrows. He knocked again.

No reply.

He buzzed the doorbell repeatedly.

No reply.

He curled his hand into a fist and banged the door.

"Please hold on! I'm coming!" a faint voice came from the inside.

Matsuda could hear footsteps becoming louder. The door creaked open. A young woman stood behind the door.

"Miss Takada?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"The blogger?"

"It's eleven in the night. What do you want?" She then blinked twice, and realized. "How the hell did the security guard let you in?"

"I'm sorry, this is just going to take a sec. I'm a friend of Light Yagami. Your boyfriend?"

"Ex boyfriend." she cut in.

"Yes, I'm sorry. Did he come here at all, by any chance?"

"No. Why is something wrong?"

"No, he's missing, that's all."

"Oh..." Takada rubbed her sleep deprived eyes. "Fuck me. Look, I had nothing to do with this."

"Nothing to do with this?" Matsuda almost yelled. "You leaked his script _online!_ You ruined his life! You destroyed everything he had been working for for the past couple of years! What in the name of fuck do you mean you had nothing to do with this?!"

"HEY! SHUT UP!" a neighbour yelled.

Takada's face didn't flinch in the least. Matsuda took a deep breath and said, "If we find him dead, you're the reason why. I hope you know that."

And saying so, he walked outside. Takada's face turned a little mortified now, and she slowly closed the door.


	23. How Brittle The Souls : Part II

**A/N: And with this chapter, we end the second part of the climax of this arc. The next arc is probably the most important arc of the story, but will run in less number of chapters but possibly more words per chapter.**

* * *

It was very dark by the time Misa got back home. Rem sat on the couch menacingly. The light from the corridor flooded into the dark room. She shut the door close and turned on a dim bulb to illuminate her house.

 _ **Why did you do that to L?**_

Misa paid no notice to her imaginary friend's query. She tipped over the bed and crashed with a dull thud that didn't actually hurt her.

 _ **Misa, answer me.**_

"Mmph," she said, her voice muffled by the pillow.

 _ **Holy hell.**_ the woman walked across the room. _**Please don't tell me you like him?**_

"Excuse me?" Misa sat up in disgust.

 _ **No way.**_

Misa pushed the hair in front of her face and pointed at Rem, "Shut it, alright? He's a friend. He's lonely. He needs people around him. People who aren't always professional with him."

 _ **And how do you know that he wants the same thing?**_

"Don't be ridiculous Rem. Who wants to ever be alone?"

 _ **I can think of one name immediately. Light Yagami.**_

The name sent an electric shock into Misa's spine. Light was still missing. And she's done absolutely nothing to help anyone find him.

She opened her laptop, and stuffed the earphones in her ear. She started playing her automatic playlist as she looked up at the ceiling.

 _ **Music cannot blotch me out, Misa.**_

"Do me a favour," Misa whispered. "Get the hell out of my mind. Just for a sec."

Rem stood shocked. Her face hung low. She walked into the kitchen and disappeared from Misa's sight.

Her gaze was fixed at the ceiling.

Light is alone.

No one wants to be alone.

None of it made any sense.

* * *

"Where to, sir? the cabbie asked. "Home," Matsuda replied.

He was disappointed that he couldn't find Light there. Surely he had mistaken Light's personality. He always seemed incredibly calm on set. He always seemed calm...always. There was not one moment he saw when Light lost his cool or tried to attack someone, verbally or physically.

A memory brought a smile to Matsuda's face. The day when Aizawa tripped Light by mistake and Light fell on L's chair. The chair collapsed. And L was yet to come. The entire studio grew quiet. Light simply stood up and dusted his suit. He picked the broken chair up and threw it at the very end of the studio. On cue, L entered the studio talking to Near. Light then talked to L. L's face showed the first signs of actual emotion for a very long time. He looked at the mangled remains of his chair. "Oh well," Matsuda was able to read his lips. Light continued standing while L sat on his chair. Light didn't point out that it was Aizawa who did it, although Aizawa was shaking in fear that whole day.

Sometimes, he just wished that things would get back to how they were.

He slid open the separator between the cabbie and the passenger which got the cabbie's attention.

"Sir?" he asked.

"What's your name?" Matsuda asked.

"Demegawa, Hitoshi."

"Tell me, Demegawa-san. Have you ever wanted things to go back to the way they were?"

After a pause, "Sometimes, sir. I worked in the television industry. I was ripping off idiots who thought their opinion on politics actually mattered to the actual politics. Soon enough, I was arrested for fraud, my wife left me and took both my children along with her. It's been a rough decade. But I'm back, I guess. I'm happy and at least I can pay my rent, huh." he laughed.

"What happened to you wife after you came back?"

"She met someone else. They got married. I got invited to her husband's bachelor party."

"Ouch," Matsuda frowned.

"That's alright. I'm an ass. You can say it."

"Which TV did you work for?"

"Sakura TV."

* * *

Misa dragged a whiteboard into her room. She wasn't prepared to go to sleep today. The whiteboard was filled with post its filled with information on her character. She took them away one by one without reading them and crushed them into one paper ball and flung it into the garbage bin. She pulled out a marker and started drawing a mind map around Light.

Even in rehab, Light preferred to be alone at times. It was only when he got rid of his typewriter he started talking to a lot of people lot more. She knew that he was actually a lot more sociable before she came into rehab.

The memories of her entering that bloody center.

She was pregnant then. She was forced to give the child away to a nearby orphanage. She hasn't seen her child since. She doesn't even know her child's gender. And she did not regret this decision at all.

The child is the proof of the horrible thing that happened in her life.

The child is the proof of the three years she had to rot in that center.

But Light is the proof that she could grow and become a different person. Light was the one who talked to her day in and day out whenever she felt low. Light was the one who rescued her from all the madness in the center.

And that is why she needed to rescue Light.

She started thinking about all the stories that Light told her about himself. About his mother. About Dr Oshino.

Might Dr Oshino know where Light might be?

She quickly opened the laptop that was playing music. She went to the website of the rehab center and looked at the current staff. Dr Oshino was not there in the list. She found a phone number. She took a risk. It was late at night. Worth a try anyway. She punched the digits into her landline and called.

"Good evening, this is-"

"THANK GOD THEY'RE STILL OPEN!" Misa thought. "Yes, hello, I'm so sorry for calling you in the middle of the night." Misa said. "Is there by any chance I could get the contact information of one Dr Oshino?"

"Dr Oshino? She's no longer on the faculty. She gave her resignation letter over a year ago."

"Damn it!" Misa thought. "I realize that. Do you have any form of contact information left of hers? I really need to talk to her."

"Can I have your name, miss?"

"My name is Amane, Misa, I was a patient in the very same clinic."

Misa was able to hear keys tapping. "Ah, yes, Amane-san. Dr Oshino was _your_ attending. Apologies. Please hold on for while. I'll try my best to get her details for you."

"Thank you," Misa said and waited. A tune played on in the phone. If that was supposed to be calming, it wasn't working.

She pulled her laptop close and started looking over the website. She found a tab. She smiled.

 _CREATIVE CORNER_ the tab said. She remembered those extended nights when Light and Misa spent hunched over the computer thinking up of crack stories to publish to that part of the website. "They're going to think we're psychopaths!" Misa would say. "They already think we are!" Light would reply.

She casually clicked it and saw a lot of entries. Fascinating entries. So much so that the IT department of the rehab center actually reprogrammed that page to split it into genres. She scrolled down and pressed the link that said _Comedy._ And there it was. Almost 51 stories written in collaboration by both Light and Misa. Utter crack. Almost half of them were about potatoes. None of it made sense.

She went back to the main index and and looked at other genres. _Drama_ was the one genre that was always least touched upon. People didn't want to remember the things that happened to them. They certainly didn't want to bring their buried memories to life by expressing them creatively. That never worked for Light.

Ah, twenty stories. That's certainly higher than what she was used to seeing when she was in rehab. Back then, there were exactly two stories. One was about rape. One was about loyalty in marriage. Surprisingly, both were written by the same author.

The titles were arranged in chronological order, so she scrolled down to see when the last story was written.

And then she froze.

"Amane-san, are you still on the call?"

Misa didn't respond for a while. Finally she burst out of her haze and stammered, "Yes, I am! I am!"

"I'm afraid I couldn't find any contact details of Dr Oshino. I'll let you know once I find out?"

"Yes, please!" Misa said. "Thank you so much for your help. Have a wonderful night!" and ended the call.

She looked at the last story keenly.

 _The Cost of Sanity_

 _By Yagami, Light_

 _Rated M_

 _Contains sexually explicit content and swearing._

Misa's finger shivered as she pressed the link. She started reading it.

Oh, god.

Oh, good god.

What the hell just happened?

What the hell is _wrong_ with him?

She slammed the laptop close and grabbed her jacket. She opened the door, locked it, and ran out into the streets. The phone buzzed again in her pocket. She decided to answer it this time.

* * *

 _6\. In the evening. His office. Every single part of his body warned Lawliet against visiting him. But he had to. He was the boss. And he was the work whore. And the work whore does whatever the boss asks him to do._

 _At least this was what Aiber described to Lawliet as his_ duties as an assistant director.

 _Above all else, Lawliet was afraid that Barbara might do something to him. Something that would scar him for the rest of his life._

 _He pulled his sleeve and checked his watch. It was 4. Two more hours._

 _He opened a box of peppermint sticks. He took one out. He put it in his mouth as though it was a cigarette. He sucked on it hard. The sensation of sweetness swelled inside his mouth._

 _And his mind instantly became a dozen times calmer._

 _6 o clock. Easy peasy._

* * *

Mello and Matt were playing video games on the couch. Near was playing with puppets. L was actually sleeping for the first time in several weeks.

"He said he was feeling tired," Mello said. Matt snickered.

Mello paused the game, clearly irritated. "What?"

"Nothing, man," Matt controlled his chuckle, and unpaused the game.

"You sick idiots," Near growled.

There was a knock at the door. "I'll get it," Near said.

"Thank you Near," Mello said. "Your efforts to fetch the door shall be etched in the halls of the mountain kings."

"Amen," Matt finished.

Near opened the door, and Misa was standing right behind it. "Misa!" Near exclaimed, wide eyed. "What are you doing here?"

Misa pushed her way inside, and announced, "Is anyone good with computers here?"

"Depends. What do you want?" Near asked behind her. Misa turned around and faced him and smiled. Near raised an eyebrow in confusion. She looked back at Mello and Matt and said, "I think I found Light."

Matt's console fell from his hands. Near smiled. Mello grinned like an idiot.

* * *

Light massaged his nose. His head hurt.

* * *

"Was that your girlfriend, sir?" Demegawa asked.

"No, not my girlfriend. Coworker. We're trying to find a friend."

"I suppose that explains why I'm driving this cab in the middle of the night."

"Sorry."

"It's alright. As long as you pay."

Demegawa noticed that Matsuda didn't lighten up from that (not that funny) joke.

"Okay, think about it like this. This whole trip I'm taking? It's going to pay my rent for three months."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not."

"Rent is that cheap in Tokyo?"

"Well, I don't live in Tokyo. I live on the outskirts. Apartments are a lot cheaper there, you know."

Matsuda smiled as he clenched the phone in his hand. He'd finally have a chance to live away from his father for once.

* * *

 _Lawliet clutched the diary tightly with his hands and knocked on the glass door that had the words_ BARBARA SMITH, D.G.A _engraved into it. Through the window, he could see that Barbara was talking to a fairly young girl. She must be...fifteen? Seventeen? She looked just a bit older than Lawliet himself. He knocked again, and Barabara looked through the glass. He signalled Lawliet to come in. He pushed through the glass door and walked in._

 _"You're early," Barbara said, looking at his watch. "It's 5:45."_

 _"I like to be early. Sue me."_

 _Barbara managed to smile. "Please, sit down." Lawliet obliged and sat on the chair right next to the girl. "Hello," she politely smiled. "Morning," Lawliet replied._

 _"Ah, yes," Barbara removed his glasses. "This is my daughter, Allie."_

 _"Allison Smith, but yeah, sure, Allie."_

 _"Nice to meet you, Miss Allison."_

 _Lawliet and Allison shook hands._

 _"Allie here wants to be an actress. And you want to be a director."_

 _Lawliet looked at her for a second, and then looked at Barbara again. He looked confused. Barabara chuckled and wore his glasses again. "I'm not kidding," he said._

 _"Besides, we're the same age, so we might become_ best _friends." Allie gave Lawliet a violent side hug. Lawliet escaped from her grasp and placed his diary on the table - for dramatic effect. "Look sir, I have no intention of directing a full scale movie just yet-"_

 _"Oh, I didn't mean right now, Lollipop. You think too much of yourself, huh? No, no, definitely not. This is more of a request. The day you start making movies, I'd like Allie to act in your first one. Got it? And what's this on the table?"  
_

 _"Damn it!" Lawliet thought and his hand flung towards the diary, but Allie's were faster. She grabbed it and opened a random page and started reading._

October 30th

Stanley Kubrick represents a certain devotion towards film making that I haven't seen in my entire life. Granted, I do not like his movies as much I as I like Tarantino's or Fincher's but the amount of effort he puts into every single one of his movies are infinitely ginormous.

Working under Barbara Smith might seem redundant but more than theory, practical work is important. I need the perfect balance between theory and practical. I need to understand how the textbook intertwines with the real studios. And I need to work with someone, even if it is someone as horrible in his work ethics as Barbara Smith.

And don't even get me started about Aiber. That pretentious raccoon can eat his own excreta and die from raccoon fever, if that is even possible.

Tomorrow's my birthday. I just want one wish. Aiber to die from his own hangover-puke.

 _"Such passion!" Allie exclaimed._

 _"It's called a personal diary for a reason," Lawliet grabbed the diary back from her hand. He noticed that Barbara was not angry at all. If anything, he seemed amused._

 _"Well it obviously isn't just a personal diary. It contains professional details too. Allie, go back home. Tell mom I'll be back by 7."_

 _Allie bid her goodbyes and left the office. Lawliet looked nervously at Barbara. He stood up, and buttoned his suit. "Come, walk with me lollipop. We have some things to discuss," and left the room. Lawliet grabbed his diary and followed him out._

* * *

"So, you write stuff on the website as a manner to express your insanity in a much creative form?" Matt asked.

"That is the essence of it, yes," Misa nodded. Near was arranging his set of ten thousand dice into a fortress of white blocks with black polka dots around him. Mello sat by the computer, and revolved on the revolving chair. "What if he'd gone back to the rehab center? I mean, if he thought he was going to endanger Takada's life because he lost his sanity, then it would be the perfect place where he would go, right?"

"No," Misa shook her head violently. "Light hated that place. The whole time he wanted to get out. He was smart enough to realize that there was no way to escape except to do what the doctors and nurses told him to do. And he did, and now he's out. I can't imagine him going back to that place."

"So what you're saying is..." Near emerged from his fortress. "He might have used a laptop someplace, and someone good with computers could help track him down? I assume that's why you came here, seeing as Matt is good with computers and all."

"So am I," Mello choked. "No you're not," Near dismissed.

"Hmm," Matt sighed, deep in thought. He removed his goggles and opened his pocket laptop. "I could find the IP address from which he made that upload, but it would be practically useless if he was at some net cafe."

"If he was at some net cafe then we could go there and ask the owner of the net cafe about the person who was here at so and so time!" Mello announced. "We have the time stamp from the upload, and we'll be able to find out."

"That won't be the case if the owner uses his right of discretion," Near interjected. Mello looked at him confused. "I've been looking through Japanese Law since you were banned to bring explosives into this country." Mello shook his head in denial. "Nevertheless, it's out only chance. Matt, how long do you think it would take?"

Matt started reading through the HTML code of the website, "Can't say for sure. It's a really old website. Give me, maybe an hour?"

Misa chimed, "Thank you so much!"

"Well," Near smiled. "He was our friend too."

"More importantly," Mello sighed. "He was L's friend too."

All of them looked towards the door of L's bedroom. Not a single sound.

Matt then opened a text editor and started writing some python code. Within minutes, he was able to extract the database of all account holders of that website. "Literally, no security defenses," he exclaimed. And one of them was Light. He then extracted the upload IPs through great difficulty since it seemed like the website didn't maintain a log of all IP addresses logged onto the website, but he was finally able to do it. "Gotcha!" he said and then traced the IP address to a physical location. Coordinates. He entered them into google maps and voila, it showed a small building.

"Where is this place?" Matt asked, showing the map to Misa. She examined the map closely and then a bulb lit in her head. "It's a cafe opposite to the building where Takada works."

"They must've had free WiFi," Mello intelligently inferred.

Misa stood up and wore her coat. "Wait, hold on!" Mello stopped her. "Where do you think you're going in the middle of the night? To find Light? It's very likely that he's moved on from that place since he's uploaded that story."

"It's still worth a try!" Misa yelled and ran out the door.

The trio looked at the closed door in muted horror. "Maybe one of us should like accompany her?" Matt said. Mello sighed and walked out of the room. Near and Matt shared evil glances at each other.

"Will you fuckers keep it low down there?" L's muffled voice emanated from the closed bedroom. "Sorry," Matt replied.

* * *

It was drizzling. The cafe had umbrellas set up but none of them were open except for one. Mello and Misa pulled out of the taxi with an umbrella of their own above their heads. They'd already paid so the taxi sped away. Mello pointed at the open umbrella. It _was_ Light. Misa ran away from the umbrella and towards Light. Mello observed the scene from the distance. Misa slapped Light right across his face. She then hugged him. Light then stood up and hugged her back. Mello smiled. He remembered what Matt told him a long time ago.

"Sometimes, it's better to not blow things up."

And despite being surrounded by large skyscrapers, Mello felt no urge to blow them all up, in fiction or real life.

* * *

The dreams were getting more and more powerful by the day.

L woke up yet again in cold sweat, remembering the horrors that he had committed towards Allie, his first proper best friend. The industry was a cold, cold place, and many speculated that it was cold mostly due to L's behaviour on set but all he was taught when he was young was that the cinema industry _was_ a cold place and that if that weren't the case then the world would swallow you whole.

"Allie," he whispered in the darkness. "I am so sorry."

* * *

 **Please review!**


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: Hey there! It's been a long time! I just got to college (it's been a month, I think?) and I had to take some time settling down. That... should explain why I didn't upload for a long time. Anyway, this is just a filler chapter since I'm not able to write the story with the "usual enthusiasm" but I just wanted to keep the bandwagon going.**

* * *

 _He examined the glass figurine in his hand slowly, almost processing every dent, every niche, every single detail about the little unicorn. The door slammed open. "You said you wanted to talk to me, Lawliet?"_

 _He didn't bother to get up. He used his hand to swivel around to look at Barbara. He pulled one document from the briefcase hanging around his neck and handed it to Barbara. "What's the meaning of this?"  
_

 _Barbara took it and examined the contents of the document while leaning on the wall. It was obvious as day to Lawliet that Barbara was trying to hold his laughter in. "When did you get this?" he asked._

 _Lawliet replied, "About two days ago." and stared at him._

 _"Wait, why are you looking at me like that?" he smiled. "Surely you don't think I had anything to do with this, did you?"_

 _Smiling, Lawliet got off the chair, and fetched another document from inside the briefcase. That smile was all he needed. He thrust it on Barbara's hands and whispered in his ears, "See you in court, asshole." and left the building. Barbara's eyes ran across the text in the second document. His eyes widened in horror._

 _Once outside, Lawliet pulled his phone out and started walking towards the tube station. "Hello," the voice in the phone said._

 _"I just handed the document to him. I should be back home in about fifteen minutes," Lawliet said._

 _"Alright," the voice said, and with a pause, "Did you meet his daughter?"_

 _"Didn't get a chance to."_

 _"Okay. See you in a bit."_

 _Lawliet dropped the call and climbed down the stairs that led to the station underneath._

* * *

 _"Is this the real life?"_

Misa stopped washing the dishes and placed them on the sink. She tried to cover her face with her hair by bending downward. Didn't help. "Did you wake up?"

 _"Is this just fantasy?"_

 _ **The Bohemian Rhapsody. How poetic.**_

"Shut it," Misa hushed and walked to the living room, where Light was on the couch, half asleep. "Light, are you awake?"

 _"Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality."_

Light's eyes were half open, one eye more open than the other. His left hand tried to reach out for something that didn't exist while his right hand remained paralyzed. His legs were spread apart, and one of his legs were shaking slowly to the rhythm of his heart. He was at the very edge of the couch. A tiny shift in his posture will bring him crashing to the floor.

Misa sighed and walked back into the kitchen. Rem then walked out of the kitchen and looked at Light pitifully.

 _ **Look at this pile of crap, Misa. This is the person who you saved.**_

 _"Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see,"_

"And you are created by the person who he saved. Besides, why are you even here?"

 _ **I thought you might need my company. Seeing as the only one you have here right now is a half asleep singer/poet/writer/failure.**_

Misa grasped a porcelain cup in her hand, prepared to throw it at the goth fashioned hallucination, before remembering that Rem was indeed a hallucination. She said one word. "Out." And Rem faded into the air.

 _"I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy."_

Misa then slid down to the floor and started sobbing quietly.

* * *

L woke up late next morning. He picked up the clock on the night stand and examined it quietly. There was a knock at the door. L didn't respond. The knock repeated itself. L sustained his silence. The knocking started again and this time it did not stop. L threw the clock at the door.

The knocking stopped.

L sat up in his bed and removed the blanket off of him and threw it on the floor. He looked at his hand silently, observing every single ridge that ran across his palm. The newly found super consciousness of his hand led to the hand feel quite numb and honestly, dead. It almost felt like an inanimate object that he was looking at under the microscope. Like it was detached from him.

He got off the bed and picked the pieces of the clock with the very same hand he was examining. He dropped the pieces into the trashcan and stood in front of the door.

Deep sigh.

He opened the door with a slow loud creak, and looked at the people outside. Near, Mello, Matt and...Matsuda?

Maybe he wasn't prepared for this day. "What's going on here?" L whispered, his eyes adjusting to the brightness of the living room.

"Good morning L!" Matsuda said. "I'm so sorry for barging in this early in the day, but I think I have an idea."

L ignored Matsuda and looked at Near. "Did we find Light?"

"We did," Mello cleared his throat. "Misa and I. He was alone in a cafe opposite to the building where the woman works. But Matsuda here has a very interesting idea I think you should listen to."

L looked at the digital clock under the TV and massaged his nose.

"You have three minutes."

* * *

 _"H-H-Hundred and eighty seconds? But that's too short a time frame! My story is a bit too friggin complex for just 3 minutes, I mean come on-"_

 _L, now a critically acclaimed director looked at his wrist watch and frowned, "You lost 14 seconds."_

 _"Oh shit!" the boy in front of him scrambled into his backpack and pulled out a couple of sheets. "So, um," he began, instantaneously summarizing the things that he had written in the paper. "Um, we have the boy who is in love with a girl right? And he meets her in the college cafeteria thingy? And this girl-"_

 _"50 seconds up."_

 _"Oh, fuck!" he whispered. "So this girl is weird, right? Like, psycho weird. Like Hitchcock Psycho weird. Something's wrong with her and the dude tries to find out why because he really, really wants to do it with her. She's the hot girl, everyone wants to do her. But the guy is kinda special, cuz he's sweet and nice and cooperative and-"_

 _"100 seconds up."_

 _"B-But then she's kinda messed up cuz her father is a drinking asshole who deserves to die, you know what I mean? I mean the abusive, raping dad...no? I mean I can see the look on your face you don't want that. Okay, the dad's just a drinker. She doesn't like the dad. She doesn't like dudes. She doesn't like dudes trying to do it with her. So, this boy right?"_

 _"Your time is up. Please leave." L said._

 _"What the-" the boy clenched his hand into a fist. "It's impossible to pitch an idea in 3 minutes! Like literally, how the fuck does one do that?"_

 _L calmly replied, "Well let me tell you where you screwed up. You claim your characters are concrete but they're actually generic characters with nothing more than a couple of adjectives to their qualities. The adjectives you've used too, are generic. Nothing interesting about them at all._ Psycho weird _,_ hot, sweet, nice, cooperative, _and of course, the most repeated word,_ do her. _If this is the kind of story that you're trying to pitch me, then you have no idea who I am, or how selective I am. You haven't even begun to comprehend what I'm looking for in a story. The moment you know what I want," L swallowed the next marshmallow, "That's when you know exactly what to pitch. And once you know what to pitch, you'll find that you could do it in less than 60 seconds."_

 _The boy muttered an expletive under his breath. L pretended not to notice. "Hopefully you'd find more luck with other directors in this business. I am not one of them."_

 _The room buzzed and the gate swung open. The boy picked up his backpack and walked out of the room. Allie smiled and walked into the room watching the boy run out of the building. "Bit too tough on him, don't you think?"_

 _"You honestly think I would direct a shitty story such as his?"  
_

 _"You have a point, but come on, Lolly. You have to lighten up. At this rate, we'd barely find any stories to make movies out of."  
_

 _Allie sat on the chair where the boy previously sat and looked at L closely. L smiled, "This industry is going to the dogs. People have started forgetting what the art of cinema is. The moment I start picking up scripts that even resemble what that idiot just wrote - that is the final nail on the coffin. The coffin that buries the soul of cinema as an artform."_

 _"And you believe I don't know that?"_

 _"I believe you choose to ignore that."_

 _"We have bills to pay, Lolly."_

 _"And I have a life to live."_

 _"You need money to survive."_

 _"I'd rather die."_

 _That shut Allie up. She looked at L in horror. She'd been his friend for 5 years now. He'd turned into someone else. A person hardened by the society of film makers. A person destroyed by her own father._

 _Her father was to blame for all this. He was most likely the one who sent L - Lawliet - on this spiraling road to this cold, hardened being he is now._

 _She stood up and stood by the door. "Just remember to hire someone. We need to make a movie as soon as possible." and closed the door._

* * *

"That," L said silently, biting his thumb, "Is not an entirely bad idea."

Matsuda's grin widened and he was at the verge of exploding from happiness. Mello and Near smiled at each other, while Matt looked at L, "So...what do we do?"

L walked towards the bathroom, "First of all, call both Misa Amane and Light Yagami. Do not call his father. We need to get them into this project as well. This needs to be done in secrecy and needs to be done swiftly. Souchiro is a good man, but he's slow."

"What about the money?" Near asked.

"Like I said before, I have someone who is prepared to pay as much as I want him to." and disappeared inside the bathroom.

Near shot a look at Mello and he replied with a shrug. Matsuda pulled out his phone, "I'm going to call Amane-san. Whose going to call Light?"

"Chances are," Mello said, "Light is still at her place."

Matsuda nodded and called Misa immediately.

"Hello? Amane-san? This is Matsuda. Yes. I was wondering whether you're free because we have an idea we want to discuss with you. And Yagami-san. Is he there as well? Oh, that's good news. Okay, when shall we see you then?" Matsuda adjusted his shirt to see his wristwatch. "Alright, we'll have lunch together then. See you!"

* * *

Misa locked the phone and held it in her hand. She turned towards Light at the dining table, who was now nursing splitting headache. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Light said, his eyes not meeting hers. "What happened yesterday?"

"That's..." Misa sighed. "Immaterial."

Light sighed and leaned back on his chair. He looked at his phone and saw that it was cracked. He looked at Misa. She shook her head. Light put it back in his pocket. He searched for something else in his right pocket. Nothing. Back pockets. Nothing.

He had no idea what he did last night.

"Who was on the phone?" he asked, drinking some of the coffee on the table.

"Matsuda."

"Matsuda? What's up?"

"I don't know."

"Come on Misa, I'm alright. Look." he tapped his arms and legs as if to show he was intact. Which he knew himself that he wasn't.

"I didn't hear him well. He said he had an idea or something."

"And idea? What for?"

"No idea."

"Did he say, or you don't remember him saying it?"

Misa looked a little offended. "Light, what's going on? Why are you dealing with the whole Takada issue...in a weird way?"

Light looked confused for a moment. "Huh?"

"Do you remember how you reacted when you realized Takada leaked your script, right?"

"Yeah, I was mad. I got really, really angry. I then went to the bar for a while, and then started roaming the streets for a bit. I went somewhere - I don't remember the name of the place - but it was a small mound, and had a really beautiful tree."

"What do you remember after that?"

Light scratched his head and looked outside. "Singing the Bohemian Rhapsody."

Misa sighed and smiled at the same time. She stood up, and proceeded to go towards the bathroom "How's your headache?"

"Tolerable. Why?"

"We're going to L's room."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"Stop asking so many questions and just come, will you."

* * *

 _"And the nominees for Outstanding achievement in the field of directing are:_

 _"David Garett, for_ The Lightning Rod.

 _"L Lawliet, for_ Glottal Stop.

 _"Kirk Lambard, for_ The New Jim Crow.

 _"Pulver Holmes, for_ Thirty Four Dollars.

 _"Richard Markson, for_ Exacerbate.

 _"And the Oscar goes to..."_

 _L destroyed everything in his room that night. He was arrested in the morning. He walked out soon enough paying 7000 dollars for bail._

* * *

 **Please review~!**


	25. Neurotic Connections

**Back with the long chapters - to compensate for the previous chapter.**

* * *

 _"His face distorts in the face of his new reality as he puts his hand inside his pocket."_

 _"Do you get it now?"_

 _"An ugly pause. Jason shivers."_

 _L sat at the very end of a long table and oversaw the reading session of his brand new movie. The screenwriter of the movie - a twenty year old girl - was narrating the action elements while the actors spoke their respective lines. L's ears were completely tuned into the reading, while his hands mindlessly overloaded the cup of coffee under him with sugar._

 _There was a knock at the door. "Come in," L said. The door creaked open and it was Allie. She cleared her throat. L looked at her and sighed. He looked back at the readers and said, "I'll be right back. Take a break if you want."_

 _Once he left the room, he swore he heard the people in the room cough and gasp for water._

 _"I can't act in your next movie apparently," Allie said, a tiny bit agitated. "Quillish's lawyers mentioned something about me being used as leverage by my father in order to force you to settle. If I act in your movie, or if I am seen having any form of a personal relationship with you, then it might force the judge to rule in my father's favor."_

 _"Do you want it rule in your father's favor?"_

 _"Lawliet, if I wanted that, I would have left your side the moment you realized what my father was doing."_

 _"Why did you come all the way to tell me that, then?"_

 _"Because Lawliet, I don't want to cease all personal relationships with you."_

 _L stood still, looking outside the window while she talked. He didn't blink for a while. He knew something was fishy. He just couldn't put his finger on it. But something was, definitely, fishy._

 _"We'll resume our so called personal relationship after the case is over then. I have a movie to direct. I'll see you later."_

 _That was the last time both of them had an amicable conversation._

* * *

Misa and Light were riding a taxi to L's new room.

"Did Sayu call?" Light asked.

"Sayu visited you when you were still asleep. She asked me what had happened. I just said you drank too much and passed out somewhere, and that there was nothing to worry about."

"Huh," Light shrugged. "Well that's mostly accurate."

"Light, both of us know that that was _not_ accurate. Are you really okay? Is there really nothing to worry about?"

"Dude, trust me, I'm okay..." and his voice trailed off as he looked outside.

The taxi passed by the street where Takada's office was. He almost froze in horror. Misa repeated again, in the most comforting voice possible, "Are you really really, okay?"

Light lifted his knees and buried his face in them. The cabbie got a bit annoyed. Misa caught it quickly and shook her head and mouthed the words, "I'll pay for repairs."

Light started sobbing quietly.

Misa didn't know what to do. So she did what she thought she was really good at. She gave him a sideways hug.

* * *

"Where are Mello and Matt?" Matsuda asked.

"They've gone out to eat." Near replied.

"Why didn't you join them then?"

"Don't care."

Matsuda shrugged and resumed his rapid pacing across the living room.

* * *

"Surely there are better ways to tackle the gravity problem," Mello said. "I mean, it's in space, so you could just blow the set up in such a manner it doesn't form too much debris, and you could animate the debris using visual effects later on."

"You're forgetting that the director isn't L. The whole thing is visual effects." Matt replied.

"Huuuuuhhh?" Mello replied mockingly. "That's just insane. If people keep doing this, I'll be out of a job."

"Technically speaking, you are out of a job."

There was a long silence. Mello got restless. "When is that waiter going to come?"

A man in uniform ran towards him and asked him, "What's your order, sir?"

"Wait, why didn't you come earlier?" Mello asked.

"It's Japan, Mello. That's how things are done here. We'll have two standard lunches. Normal water. Thank you."

The waiter scurried away, leaving a frustrated Mello gashing his teeth.

"Hey, Mello?"

"Hm?"

"What's up with L?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Why isn't he as upset with Light as he usually is against his screenwriters?"

Mello scratched his head. "Actually, it's not only with Light. He's lightened up a lot. Remember what he did to the cinematographer for the movie he shot in Russia?"

"You're talking about the guy who got beaten nearly to a pulp and then fired, right?"

"Yeah, and in this movie, remember when the costume designer got fired?"

Matt sat in silence. The waiter reappeared with two glasses of water. Matt thanked him and sipped the glass.

"Is he voluntarily trying to calm down?"

"Well for regular people standards what he did was not 'calm' at all, but yeah, you could say that. When he slept last night, I heard him whispering a name. I couldn't really hear what the name was, but this was the first time I've heard him say that. The last time he seemed this emotionally vulnerable was when he didn't get his fix of oxy."

"Shit, he's still on oxy?"

"No, he stopped months ago. Said it was ruining him."

"Well that's... good news."

Because here's the paradox that Mello, Near and Matt faced when it came to L's newly found behavior. His ruthless, aggressive, destructive behavior defined him. The less he became of that, the better it was for everyone - and quite perhaps himself - but the question that really hung around was why. And if he is indeed toning down his violent mind, what's the impact it's going to have on his creative abilities.

That was the question that L was thinking about himself.

He stood on the balcony, breathing in the fresh air. Tokyo was a fairly polluted city decades ago, but they've really dialed it down in the last couple of years to such an extent that breathing on a skyscraper resembled inhaling air on a hilltop.

His phone buzzed. He looked at it. He then smiled subtly. He walked back into the apartment to find both Mello and Matt had returned. Perfect timing.

"I have some news," L said calmly. "We have our next producer."

* * *

 _The case ruined Barbara Smith's life and everything he had worked for. His production company went bankrupt after the case was over and the settlement was so huge that he had to sell five of seven houses. L wouldn't accept a non disclosure agreement, and for good reason too. In a ruthless industry like this, the image is everything, and when that image goes to the docks, everything that they are will be destroyed._

 _And that's exactly what happened to him. His reputation dropped down and producers stopped helping to fund his films. He used up most of his money (which included liquidating the last two houses and emptying his and his wife's bank account) to make one final movie - which bombed because that was_ _simultaneously when L launched his next movie - which was his highest grossing movie till then. Allie was forced to drop out of film school and Barbara's wife divorced him._

 _And the entire time, L sat behind the television, maniacally laughing every time news about Barbara's misfortune popped up. It worried some people. But it did not deter his efforts to destroy him._

 _"Quillish?" L said, watching the TV while eating cereal._

 _"Yes, L?" the old man next to him replied._

 _"Get Allie on the phone. I want to talk to her."_

 _Quillish obeyed, and dialled the number and gave the phone to him. Before handing it over, he asked, "Can I ask why?"_

 _"Sure," L replied. "The whole family is dying, and I just want to help."_

 _"You do realize you were the one who destroyed their family, right?"_

 _"I'm just doing my part to help a fellow artisan in the industry," L said, grabbing the phone from Quillish's hands. "I'm only human."_

 _Quillish smiled courteously and walked out of the room. "You're no human," he whispered under his breath._

 _"Ah, Allie. It's me, L. Do you have a minute?"_

* * *

"Tada!" Matsuda said, waving his arms in the air like a maniac.

Everyone except the people who have already heard his idea, looked at him like he was indeed a maniac.

"There's no way this would work," Light sighed.

"Come on Light," L said. "Where did you lose your optimism?"

Near looked at him and shook his head. _Not now._ L shrugged.

"But wouldn't doing that sort of ruin the entire story?" Misa pointed out.

"It would, but we don't really have a choice anymore," L answered. "Takada's leaking has not only damaged the future of this movie, but also the future of the Yagami Production House. Your father isn't willing to pay anymore money, Light. And I wouldn't blame him for that." He then drew himself closer to Light and said, "I wouldn't blame anyone for that. It's no one's fault."

"Except Takada," Matsuda slammed his fist against his palm. "That - excuse me Yagami-san - BITCH!"

Light shook his head and walked out of the room to the balcony.

"It's alright," L said, drawing everyone's attention to him. "He just needs a minute. Anyway, I told you all about the alternative source of income right? It's ready."

"Who is funding us now?" Near asked.

"Does it matter?" said Mello.

"It might," Near said. "We have no idea what the conditions of our new source of money will be. Imagine if he finds out that our script was leaked. That dramatically decreases the financial gains for this movie. And if already knew that our script was leaked, what does he get out of paying for our movie? So yeah, it matters a lot, Mello."

"I'm going to go talk to Light," Misa said and left the table. L held her hand and shook his head. Misa frowned, but she sat back on her chair.

Light looked at the reflection of the sun on the skyscraper opposite to him. This was a new building. He ran his fingers over the railing of the balcony while thinking about what happened yesterday.

His phone buzzed. He opened it and saw that he had a message.

It was Takada.

* * *

 _Allie looked at her watch. 12 AM. No problem._

 _She continued reading the book, but her eyelids got the better of her and closed. She leaned forwards and backwards momentarily, but eventually fell face front towards the book._

 _BOONNNKKKK! the horn yelled._

 _The loud blast woke her up. The book fell from the steering wheel. She rubbed her eyes and looked around her. The roads were empty. She picked the book up and tucked it inside her backpack. She turned the car on and sped away before any cops caught her for disturbing the peace of the night._

 _Yes, Allison Smith lived off a car for the last seven months. So you could imagine her surprise when she saw that her phone rang and the caller ID said "Lollypop"._

 _She picked the phone up and whispered, "Hello?"_

 _"Ah, Allie. Are you free right now?" the phone said._

 _"It's in the middle of the night L," Allie sighed. "What do you want?"_

 _"Middle of the night? The sun's barely setting now,"_

 _"...where are you?"_

 _"Las Vegas."_

 _"...Vegas huh," she sighed._

 _"That's immaterial. Are you free right now?"_

 _"What do you want?"  
_

 _"I want to cast you for my next movie."_

* * *

"Hello?" Light emitted a feeble sound.

"Light, it's Kiyomi."

"...what do you want Kiyomi?"

"I need to talk to you."

* * *

 _"Why would you do that?" Quillish asked, sitting opposite to L._

 _"I'm only human," L replied. "I recognize a former partner of mine suffering, and so I have a moral obligation to save her."_

 _"I think you're lying,"_

 _"I don't pay you for judging my actions. Just let me know when I can start shooting the movie."_

 _"The process is almost done. The producers are happy with the script, so they said, and I quote, 'Just imagine our bank accounts to be an infinite well'".  
_

 _"I doubt they'd say that. They're Americans."_

 _"You think I'd lie to you?"_

 _"Since you've pointed out to me that I'm a liar, why not?"_

 _Quillish sat silently and looked at the caffeinated man in front of him. He stood up and put his hat on. "I don't know why you want Allison Smith to be in your movie, and I don't think I want to know why anymore. I shall call you the next time I hear word from the producers."_

 _"Farewell," L waved._

 _"Until later."_

* * *

"Why?" Light started pacing around the small balcony.

"Because I feel like I need to explain something to you."

"I don't understand what's left to explain. You stole and published my script for the world to see."

"I know what I did!" she yelled, and there was a long silence. Light couldn't hear what was going on, but he thought she was...

...crying?

* * *

 _"Why do you want me in your movie, L?" Allie said, after she finished reading the entire script. "I'm not cut out to be this character."_

 _"But you are," L replied. "You just don't know it yet. How long have you been in acting school?"  
_

 _"That is immaterial, and you yourself told me once that people who graduate from such schools know little to nothing about acting."_

 _"Yes," L paused. "But none of them are my friends."_

 _"Friends? Are you telling me we're still friends, L? Were we friends when you sued my father? Were we friends when his company ran out of money? Were we friends when we lost everything we owned?"  
_

 _"Are you honestly blaming me for the "misfortune" that you people went through."_

 _She looked at him, trying to come up with a reply. She couldn't._

 _"Look, your father screwed me over for a film that he only had half the rights to, and I sued him for that," L put the spoon of cake in his mouth, and mumbled for a while before swallowing it. "Everything that happened to him after that was completely unforeseeable. I sued him as a producer would sue another producer. And he was judged for being a bad one. Everything that happened to him, and you, and your mother, was because he was judged as a human being. He was a bad one, and he was judged harshly. I'm a friend who's trying to help you out. It's your option if you want to back out from this."_

 _She scratched the end of the paper, while thinking about what he said. Almost immediately, the last couple of months flashed in front of her. She took a deep breath and said, "Okay."_

 _L smiled. She was unsure whether it was a crooked smile, or a genuine heartfelt smile. She chose to delude herself, thinking it was a genuine one. The man standing in the shadows, observing the conversation however, knew exactly what was on L's mind at the moment._

* * *

"Takada," he whispered into the phone. "Are you crying?"

"I'm sorry," she replied, controlling her tears. Light heard the phone get placed on a table, as she disappeared for a while. She then came back (he heard her footsteps) and picked the phone up again. "Light we need to talk."

"What's there to talk about, Takada? You leaked a script that I painstakingly wrote for-"

"I KNOW!" she cried. "I know, but I didn't have a... have a..."

And for that moment, Light took the phone off his ear. His mind immediately fell into problem solving mode.

His mind immediately zoomed past all the things that happened when he was drunk. They weren't obvious, they weren't clear, but most of it made sense to him. But that was all he needed to realize what he had done. Tears appeared on his eyes. He looked inside the room and saw that while Misa was a part of the conversation with the group, she looked at the balcony from time to time. Light moved away once he realized Misa was looking at him.

Everything was starting to condense. Nothing was really that vague anymore. It all started making sense. Except he was missing one bit of crucial information. Information that he thought he knew.

No.

Information that he knew he knew.

But it was hidden away somewhere in the depths of his dark subconscious that the only way he'd find out...

...was if he was in the Nu.

That's it.

Immediately, he tried to remember everything that happened to him in the last time he was stuck in the Nu. Some detail.

And there it appeared, in broad dayloght.

"I didn't have a choice," she said, in between tears. "That's why I need to talk to you."

Every single moment of their intimacy, starting from the moment they bumped into each other at the bookstore replayed itself like a cinematic record in front of him. And there was that crucial detail that he had always skipped over. His eyes widened as he caught that detail by the throat.

"Where?" Light said.

"My house?"

"I don't know where your house is."

"Your house?"

Light shuddered at the thought. The perfect location for reconciliation. If it comes to it, she might use him again. Use him again to get closer to L and achieve all of her ulterior goals. He was not going there vulnerable this time. This time, the power will be in his hands.

"Alright." he said and pocketed the phone without second thoughts.

He walked back into the hall and said, "Guys, I'm going to be gone for a while. Misa, care to join me?"

"What's it about?" Misa asked.

"I'll tell you on the way. And L," he looked at him, and L just smiled as he looked down. "We'll see you later," L sighed.

Light hailed a taxi and got into it along with Misa. He told the driver his address and closed the shutter in front of him so that he can't overhear.

"Okay, so Takada just called me - don't freak - and she told me that she needed to talk to me."

"Why?"

"That's what I asked, and she said that she had no choice in doing what she just did. What does that tell you?"

"She's trying to not claim any responsibility for the thing she did."

"That's one interpretation. I have another. She actually didn't have a choice. She was forced to do this. Or, she was paid to do this."

"Who would want to do that?"

"A person who wants to see my father's company become bankrupt."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but my father has made a lot of enemies over the years he has run this business. That's why L has been really, really reluctant in order to get this project funded by my father, because he knows who this enemy is, and worst of all, he knows that he might try and attack us."

"...who is this person?"

"I don't know...exactly."

"Okay, let me rephrase. How do you know L has been muddled up in this?"

"One time when we were drinking, L told me about one of the producers he worked with and how he screwed him out by taking over the entire production process. This pissed L off and he sued his pants off. What's even better is that one of the actresses he was working with? It was her father. It all fits. From day one he's been talking to me about personal relationships with people in power of the pre-production part of the movie to the actual sponsors of the movie could prove to be detrimental to the progress of the movie. That's why! He knew my father was the producer, and he knew that my father was probably one of the people who this producer who L sued defrauded. Misa, do you get what I'm saying?"

"Kinda," Misa replied, a bit overwhelmed. "...why bring me though?"

"Because all of the things I just said could be a huge steaming pile of baloney. In the end it could just be Takada using me again. I don't want to be vulnerable anymore, Misa. I want to be the guy in control of the situation. Just once. I have a chance to not fuck up anything - and I not going to fuck it up this time again."

Misa smiled. "Sure."

* * *

 _"To Barbara Gardner Smith."_

 _"That is your father's name."_

 _"That is correct."_

 _"What were the contents of that letter?"_

 _"The ruling of the case against my father."_

 _"Would you say that the prosecutor's client, director L Lawliet had proper grounds against your father."_

 _"...yes."_

 _"Would you say that justice system has conducted its job properly in fining in your father?"_

 _"...yes."_

 _In the very end of the court room, a man whispered, "What the fuck is this? She has a legal obligation to say yes."_

 _"Would you further go to accuse the prosecutor that he had single handedly ruined your life?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Why?"_

 _"Because I think everything was staged. I think he just wants to torture me. I think he just wants to mess around with people who has had bad relations with."_

 _The crowd started grumbling with a couple of gasps here and there._

 _Allison Gardner Smith sat at the defendant's stand, her eyes with no life in them, her wrist and chest heavily bandaged and still saturated with bright red blood._

 _"Objection!" yelled the prosecutor. "This line of questioning avoids the question that I posed - it doesn't matter how badly your delusions tell you that my client destroyed your life by "sexually harassing" you, which has no proof, and furthermore, you have no proof that my client has targeted you for mental assault. You have no proof that he did anything to ruin your life. Furthermore, it is illegal, by the law, to commit suicide, and yet, you have failed to commit suicide not once, not twice, but four times. The evidence is in your very pre-hearing deposition. Now tell me, is there any reason why my client should go to jail."_

 _The judge looked at the chair next to the prosecutor's. It was empty._

 _L Lawliet was not there._

* * *

 **I hope you liked this chapter! Please review!**


	26. Gravity Is Not Weak

**So, this chapter is slightly shorter, I guess, because you know, dramatics. Hope you like the way how this story is progressing.**

* * *

 _The bell rang, and the students started packing their bags. "Hold on!" the teacher raised his voice. "Might I have five more minutes of your time?"_

 _The entire class grumbled._

 _"Now, now," the teacher dusted his palms from the chalk dust. "I'm giving you all an assignment. I want you to pick your favorite film maker from the last century and write a small piece on them. Do you understand?"_

 _"When's it due?" said a student._

 _"Next Monday. I'm giving you all 13 days to work on it. So I expect a fairly good report."_

 _Aesop sat in his living room staring at his laptop listing down all the directors he could write about. It became abundantly clear that he was a fan of the psychological thriller genre. He had a lot of names on his list, starting from Alfred Hitchcock to Daniella Davis._

 _And somewhere hidden in that list was a single letter._

 _And somehow, he decided that he would research about that single letter later._

* * *

The taxi halted in front Light's house, and Light opened the door to find Takada already standing in front of the gate. She wore nothing extra - just a shirt and a jean - and absolutely nothing ornamental. Light was relieved to see that she wasn't wearing an earpiece. Which meant that his theory could actually hold some weight.

Misa paid for the taxi and the taxi drove away. Takada looked at Misa, and looked down and smiled. "I understand," were her first words.

"Takada, I don't have time for this. What's going on?"

She took a deep breath and tried analyzing the situation. Misa was here. And she was right next to Light. Obviously a countermeasure in case she tried anything weird.

"Aren't you going to invite me into your home?"

"No."

"I guess I can't really complain."

"What is going on?" Light reiterated, this time with a slight impatience and anger in his tone.

"Alright. Putting it simply, I was paid to do this, Light. I was paid by an unknown person to shadow you and find weaknesses in your movie that one would be able to use to destroy it."

"I thought you were a journalist."

"And I am. An investigative journalist. I also write a blog when I have free time."

"Wait, hold on a minute," Light said, fully aware that he holds the power in this situation. "Why shadow me?"

"I don't know," the reply came dazzlingly fast - almost as though it was rehearsed. "But I think there might be a lot of people other than me trying to bring the movie down."

"Who is this unknown person?"

"I wouldn't say the word _unknown_ if I knew who it was."

"But he had to contact you in some way or the other, right?"

"True, but he called me from a blocked number."

"It's a _he_ then."

"Yes, Light. The person is a he. You've eliminated about 50% of the world's population."

"Why did you have to tell me this?"

"Because I felt guilty, Light. I couldn't do that to you. After I did what I had done, I didn't anticipate how badly it would damage you until a random guy came knocking on my door. Once I did, I realized my mistake. If I could undo it, then I would."

"Then do it. Take the post down."

"Light, you know that doesn't change anything."

"I want to decrease damages as much as possible."

"...alright," Takada agreed with much reluctance.

Misa was confused once she heard Light say, "take the post down" because that shouldn't matter at all if they all followed L and Matsuda's new plan.

* * *

 _All boring._

 _They all had the same story. Dropped out of high school to work under an established director. Learnt the craft and became directors themselves. They had no merits to them other than their trademarks - shaky cam, lens flares, dark pictures and so on and so forth. It was so...textbook._

 _But this single letter director was slightly more interesting than the rest._

 _He checked his calendar. 5 days more to write hundreds of words about him._

 _Teacher was bound to be impressed._

* * *

Light and Misa were back in a taxi driving back to L's room. Light turned around so that he could see Takada through the rear window, and sure enough, she was trying not to breakdown.

"Light, what just happened?" Misa asked, genuinely confused. "I mean, she just confirmed your suspicions."

"Even more so. I wasn't the target at all. I was just a tool. L was the real target. Which means that we have greatly shortened our list of producers who might want to screw us over. They're not aiming for the Yagami Production House at all."

"Doesn't that diverge your list rather than converging it? I mean it sounds to me like L has more enemies than your father does."

"No way. The main reason father didn't visit us when my mom died is because he was hiding from seven gangs in Tokyo while staying underground in Shanghai. There's no way anyone has more enemies than my dad."

"Unless you're absolutely sure about that."

Light was already on his phone. He was googling L up. "Aha, look. Smith v Lawliet."

"Smith?"

"Barbara Smith?"

"Wait, are we talking about _the_ Barbara Smith who holds a land speed record at crashing financially?"

"...exactly."

"Where does he get the funds to enact this act of vengeance though?"

* * *

 _He found his email ID. It shouldn't hurt to send him an email, right?_

 _Of course it shouldn't._

 _To : contactus_

 _Subject : Handshake from a student_

 _Message :_

 _He looked at the blinking cursor for an extended period of time before just giving up and discarding the draft anyway._

 _The next day, he turned his report in, and sat in class as the teacher started droning about post-war movies. Because people actually care about that, you see._

 _But his mind revolved around in the same manner that the pen in his hand did, around the Wammy School of Film making. He had to apply. Applications start this fall. And he has all summer to study as much film making as possible. All he needed to do was convince his parents that he would be an excellent film maker, and that Wammy would help him do that._

 _Yes, he too shall become a master director like how L did._

 _And in the future, he too shall be called..._

* * *

The taxi pulled over the hotel, and Light and Misa ran towards the room L was in. They had questions. Important ones.

It doesn't technically matter right now. With the new plan, it's practically impossible to ruin the movie anymore. But as Light kept repeating in the car, "What if?"

Knock knock knock knock. The door opens. Light and Misa looked at Matsuda as he opens the door, panting.

"L," Light gasped for breath. "We need to talk?"

L was in the middle of finishing his brown semi solid jelly-like mixture that he liked to call "coffee". He looked slightly astonished. But he knew Light was going to do something serious. Why it involved him is a different story?

"Alone?" L asked.

"If it's not too much of a problem."

"Alright," L kicked himself out of the couch and nudged his head towards the balcony. Light nodded and followed him to the balcony.

Misa joined everyone else who were still around the glass table top, talking seriously about Matsuda's new plan. Mello could care less about the Matsuda plan. This was way more intriguing.

"What was that?" Mello asked Misa. "Where did you two go?"

"Subtle about questioning much?" Near mused.

"It's alright," Misa said. "We went to meet Takada. She said she wanted to explain what happened. And she did."

"Please tell me that's the reason why Light wanted to talk to L."

"Yes, part of it."

"This just got interesting!" Mello did a fistpump to the air. "So, damn, interesting!"

The telephone suddenly started ringing. The room fell into an awkward silence. This was a landline. And not many people are supposed to know about their location. Near gingerly picked the phone up, and said, "Who is this?"

"Nate, is that you?" said a familiar voice. "It's Quillish."

* * *

 _There was a large A marked in red in front of the paper. Aesop was more than just happy. After all, this could also be used to further his argument that he could be a great film maker one day._

 _A great film maker like L._

 _So his mom sat in front of him in the living room at 7 pm, and waited for her son to get back from school. She read his note today, neatly hand written and placed inside an envelope that was hidden inside the fridge. It told her that he wanted to tell her something very important. Something that might change the way he lived his life._

 _Her son would be back by 8. He had extra classes in calculus today._

 _She figured it wasn't a gigantic violation of privacy to see what he was browsing last on his computer. She hoped it wouldn't be what a teenager would be watching secretively, but instead it was a Wikipedia page on a director. She tried switching tabs, and she saw a webpage of a film school. Notepad was open and it had tons of notes._

 _"Oh no," she thought to herself. "No, no, no, no."_

 _And that's exactly what Aesop told her once he got back._

 _"But I have to do it! Mom, remember what Dad always said? There's no true purpose of living unless you do exactly what you were meant to do! This is what I was meant to do! I was meant to work under L and become a successful film maker in the future."_

 _"Aesop, you do not understand the dangers of the film industry. It is no place for a boy of sixteen."_

 _"L was sixteen when he started helping out the director Barbara Smith."_

 _"You are not L! You are Aesop! He is a different person and you are a different person!"_

 _"Which is why I must strive to be like him! So that I can become as awesome as he is."_

 _"The point of life is not to be awesome, Aesop, it's to survive till the average life expectancy of the human race."_

 _"What the-" Aesop nearly lost it. "So what do you want me to do? Open up a hardware store like your father did? Work at it like a mule with absolutely no creativity in the work I'm doing whatsoever. Work at it with no job satisfaction?"_

 _"You'll have money, and such a "boring job" as you call it would provide enough financial stability for your family."_

 _"What family? You live off dad's army pension, and your father gives you a fraction of his returns from the hardware store!"_

 _"I'm talking about your wife, and your children."_

 _"I DON'T WANT TO HAVE A WIFE OR CHILDREN IF IT MEANS THROWING MY LIFE AWAY!"_

 _His mother looked at him in absolute horror. What had she done to create this demonized human in front of her?_

 _"Aesop. We're not talking about this. Get to your room. You are not to come out of your room until next week."_

 _"What about school?"_

 _"I'm taking you out of school. This is what happens when you educate your children too much."_

 _Aesop looked at her, bewildered, and stomped into his room, slamming the door close. He put his face to a pillow and yelled as loudly as he could. He hoped the pillow would silence his yelling. It didn't._

* * *

"What happened?" L asked.

Light inhaled the fresh air to calm his nerves down. "L, I think I know what's going on here."

"Hm?" L raised an eyebrow.

"Takada called me today. She said she wanted to explain everything. I just had a theory on the way I went there, but she confirmed it."

"Where did you guys meet?"

"Does it matter?"

"If you met at her office, it was strictly professional. If it was at a cafe or a restaurant, a lot more personal. If it was-"

"We met at my home."

"How are you sure she was not honey potting you?"

"I had Misa tag me along."

"Clever choice. Continue."

"She was being paid by someone to sabotage this project. Someone from the west. I wasn't the target, L - you were."

L's eyes went from cold and indifferent to suddenly concerned. "What are you talking about?"

"Misa thinks that the information we get from Takada isn't going to matter as long as we follow out new plan. But I do. L, who is our new eager producer?"

That was the point when the final piece of the puzzle fit in perfectly in L's mind. He could almost hear his voice whisper, "Checkmate."

He felt like that 16 year old boy again.

He lost it.

* * *

 _The room was dark. He refused to turn the light on. There was a knock at the door. A plate scratched the floor as it came from under the door. Dinner._

 _"It must be seven," Aesop thought._

 _The plan was set. He just needed to count to 8 o clock now._

 _"One Mississippi, two Mississippi..." he started counting to 3600._

 _His bags were packed._

 _His note was ready._

 _The window was open._

 _And there was no one in sight._

 _The plan was set in action._

 _"Tonight is the night I will be reborn," he told himself. "Tonight is the night Aesop dies."_

 _He looked at the glimmering stream of light from the gap between the door and the floor from the other room._

 _"Tonight, A is born."_

* * *

 **Please review!**


	27. Prison of Conciousness

**A new chapter! Yay!**

 **I really like this chapter for some odd reason, maybe because it just flows a lot darker than the other chapters do. Also, I feel like I;m getting the hang of writing long paragraphs now, so yay?**

* * *

 _The church across the street had a large clocktower in the front. People, especially Aesop wondered why that clocktower existed. Today, Aesop decided to not ask that question, but instead to utilize that fact to his advantage._

 _His carry-all was loaded with all of his clothes and one video camera that he bought a couple of months ago. He creaked open the window, making sure there isn't too much noise._

 _His plan would fail terribly if he made a gross error in regards to what time it really was._

 _The clocktower of the church was connected to the humongous bell inside. Every time the clock hits 8:00 it makes a loud, annoying, repetitive gong. He had spent several hours writing letters and sending it to the church to either disconnect the bell or buy a smaller bell but to no avail. It sometimes gave him massive headaches. It used to the bane of his existence._ _Today, that annoying sound is the path to his salvation._

 _He threw the carry-all on the ground, and that was a tall drop. He slipped out of the window of the third storey and tried to scoot across a tiny niche that was on the side of the wall. The air was chilly, the church was currently out of his sight, but all he had to do, was walk until the building sort of turned to the other side. It was that face of the apartment that was opposite to the clocktower. And when the clock struck 8, he would set his plan in action._

* * *

L stood still in horror, his hands gripping the banister of the balcony as tightly as humanly possible, gritting his teeth. He had been too careless. Revenge had blinded him. _Sadistic_ revenge, had blinded him from all the pitfalls of his supposedly foolproof plan. Barbara had clearly seen those holes in his plan to fuck him up, and had used it in his favor. And had Light not talked to Takada, had Light not maintained his inquisitiveness, L would have definitely fallen for Barbara's trap. And falling for his trap is the number one worst thing that could happen to L right now.

 _Fuck Allie._

 _Fuck Roger._

 _Fuck A._

 _Everyone deserved to die._

 _Everyone deserved to be burned till their ash glowed white hot._

"Light," L managed to say. "Do you remember when I told you about this man called Barbara Smith?"

"He's our backup producer?"

L almost couldn't bring himself to say it. He regretted every single step of planning he did, thinking Barbara would not outwit him. "Yes."

Light was able to, somehow, understand to some extent what was running in L's mind. He decided now would not be the best time to be as condescending as possible, even though this was _the ideal moment._ He knew better. He was his friend.

"What do we do now?"

L walked inside the room, "I don't know."

Light's eyes closed, and looked away from L. "I didn't take you for a defeatist."

"Hmph," L chuckled. "Neither did I."

"Are you going to tell them?" Light asked.

"I thought I'd give you the honors."

"L, it has to be you. I'm a nobody. I've embarrassed this production in a rea-" he turned around to see L's sole speeding towards his chin.

It stopped millimeters away from his flinched chin. The scene stood frozen for a couple of seconds. Light didn't realize he was actually holding his breath the whole time till he felt like he was suffocating a little bit, and found that odd. L withdrew his foot and in a tone that wasn't his usual synthetic monotone, but rather in a baritone purr, "Keep your self pity to yourself. I've got enough downers in my mind to depress myself. Tell everyone if you want to. Or else let them swim in a false reality where Matsuda's plan is still plausible."

L did not stop going back to his bedroom when Light called him this time.

* * *

 _BONG._

 _Aesop's mother might have been a bit too harsh with her punishment. And if you were in her shoes, you would have done the same. She wasn't a monster, but she has to at least act like one if her voice was to be heard._

 _She was a mother, after all._

 _BONG._

 _She drew herself to the door, concerned, and knocked softly on the door. "Aesop?" she whispered. "Are you alright?"_

 _No reply._

 _"Poor child," she thought. "The mental pressure of the grounding must have made his migraines worse!"_

 _She opened the door without second thought and found that Aesop's room was neat, clean, spic and span, and most importantly, devoid of its owner. She walked to the open window in muted horror, the white curtains dancing to the cold winds of the Manchester winter. She looked outside. No one was on the streets. It was empty. She looked back into the room. In the middle of the bed, was a neatly folded envelope. A note._

 _BONG._

 _"Dear mom," it read. "If you read this letter, that means I was right about you. You aren't cold-hearted enough to actually lock your son up for an entire week without checking up on him every now and then. And I have utilized that tiny inch of warmth in your heart to my own advantage - for the first and hopefully the only time in my or your life._

 _"I have known you all my life. And I understand your emotions well. If I am indeed right, you would be crying right now. I beg you not to cry. It's counter productive to what I have to say. Undoubtedly, you are exceedingly smart so you'd soon find out where I am headed to. I shall spare you of the effort. I am going to the Wammy School of Film Making. And hopefully by the end of this letter, I would be able to convince you to not chase me down and prevent my education in the art of film making._

 _"There is nothing wrong in living a life such as what was expected of me from you. It is not that I find it boring. It is not that I find it "not adventurous". Living the life that you have planned for me is a prison. A prison that not you, but I have built for myself, living and rotting inside it as long as my soul exists in my body. I wish to escape it. I wish to escape the prison of my consciousness._

 _"Art helps an artist do that. It is an expression. Business helps a businessman realize his escape from their consciousness - and overflow of money. And for a person grown with intensive family values, a safe life, a wife, and children is what helps you escape your consciousness - because you invest yourself in someone else's life. I do the same, except I do not have any kind of boundary._

 _"This is what I was meant to do. Explore human psychology. Explore human emotions. Things that I can never experience. You take the word_ psychopath _as though it was bad. It isn't. It just means that I am extremely subjective to what happens in our society. That is why I need L, mom. L is the only person who can lead me to my exit from my prison. That is why I must, I absolutely must, go to the Wammy School of Film Making._

 _"I shall return to you, mother, as a better human being. I promise you, I will be with you before I meet father._

 _"Yours, Aesop Brittany-Taylor."_

 _His mother folded the letter and decided to accept his son's decision._

 _As fate would have it, Aesop met his deceased father before he met his mother._

* * *

 _"Why do you watch porn?" Light asked, one night._

 _"Because it's interesting," L replied. "Apart from the part where it desensitizes me."_

 _"...right," Light nodded off to sleep._

* * *

"I understand," Near said and hung up the call. "Who was that?" Mello asked.

"Quillish."

"...that's weird," Mello replied.

"How come?" Misa intervened.

"Wait, who's Quillish?" Matsuda waved his hands around.

"L's agent. We haven't seen him in years." Matt said quietly. "He's the one who started the Wammy School, and he's the main reason why the three of us are here."

"What do you mean you haven't seen him in years?" Misa asked.

"Well, Matt put things very delicately right there. A more accurate statement would be he hasn't been in contact with any of us in years. And by us, I mean the students at the Wammy School. Ever since A died, it's rumored that L and Quillish grew distant to such an extent that they rarely communicate too."

"I heard that when Light's agent contacted Quillish, he just gave the contact details of L instead of talking in L's behalf himself," Misa pointed out.

"So why did he call you now?" Mello said, with a very subtle emphasis on _you_ that even Near could not catch.

"It's about- Light, what happened?"

Light walked in, his face covered with sorrow. "We have a huge issue."

Misa grew concerned and looked at him, hoping that her eyes conveyed her message. He looked back at her and shook his head slightly. Misa let a sigh a relief.

"We need to stop making any plans about the film immediately," Light dropped the dreaded sentence.

* * *

 _"What is this?" L asked, mockingly._

 _"My graduation project, director," A replied._

 _He eyed him carefully. Two blocks of sugar should get it right. He stirred the tea in the cup, while watching the film being played on the projector._

 _"_ This _is your graduation project?"_

 _"Yes director."_

 _"Tell me something kid. How long have you been here?"  
_

 _"Three years."_

 _"Is that right?"_

 _"Yes director."_

 _"You're graduation this film school in three years."_

 _"Yes director."_

 _L stopped the film and looked at A in the eye. "Why did you come to the Wammy School of Film Making?"  
_

 _"To become a film maker like you."_

 _"Tsk. How did you even get past the interviews?"_

 _"Excuse me, director?"  
_

 _"Interviews, idiot, interviews. Did you attend the interviews or not?"_

 _"I-I-I d-d-"_

 _"Stop stammering, answer the question."_

 _"I ddd-ddid."_

 _"You did, didn't you."_

 _"Yessir."_

 _"Okay, so what did you say when the interviewer asked you,_ What made you choose the Wammy School of Film Making _?"_

 _"Umm, uhhhh-"_

 _L threw the cup full of boiling hot tea inches away from A's face as it crashed on the wall behind. He stood up and slammed his fist on the table._

 _"ANSWER ME."_

 _"I told them that I wanted to become a director like you, director."_

 _"Tell me, why do you want be a film maker?!"_

 _It all flashed back now. All the three years of hard work and the main action of bravery and courage that kicked this entire journey off for him._

 _"To escape my prison of consciousness," he replied calmly._

 _"What the fuck is this, a philosophy classroom? Did you want the money, the fame, the recognition, tell me asshole, what did you want? What are you expecting out of being a director?"_

 _The door slammed open and Quillish ran inside, and turned L, "Are you high again?"_

 _L looked away groggily and replied, "...maybe."_

 _Quillish put his hand to his forehead and sighed heavily. He looked at the boy and said, "We'll do this some other day, student. Take your film and come back when you receive an email from me. Or Roger. Understand?"_

 _A nodded and immediately grabbed the thumb drive from the projector and ran away from the viewing room, tears flowing across his hollow cheeks._

 _"This cannot go on, L," Quillish said, not looking at him, but instead at the swiveling door._

 _"What cannot go on? Critiquing dumb-as-fuck movies?"_

 _"That was not critiquing L, and you know it. Barbara did not do this to you."_

 _The name ticked L off._

 _He lunged from his chair and held Quillish by the collar. "Barbara called me a work whore. I got beat up by the other assistant directors every single day. I had lights thrown at me - on purpose. I was asked to fetch his files, fetch his papers, fetch his food, and whatnot. Barbara did not do this to me. Barbara did it worse than I did. He was a monster. A fucking monster. Don't you fucking dare compare me with that motherfucker or I'll fire your sorry ass off."  
_

 _Quillish simply patted L's hands and they fell - a side effect of the intoxication - and he stormed away. "I'll speak to you when you're sober again," and slammed the door close._

 _"Good luck to you, sire," L whispered and fell back on the swiveling chair, snickering._

* * *

"Quillish just told me about him just now. None of us really knew about what happened between him and Barbara. And we just really assumed that Allie was just one of his other heroines that hated him for no reason whatsoever" Near broke the ten minute silence after Light explained everything that happened.

"L is a psychotic perfectionist. But he's made too many enemies, and most of them were not because he was a perfectionist, but because he is an asshole. We cannot continue making any more plans for this movie because we have no idea how many people want it dead." Light sighed and leaned back into the couch. Matsuda looked extremely depressed now. He spent too much time thinking about this plan, but with Light's new intel, it seemed like it would never materialize.

Light looked to his side, beyond Misa, and saw Ryuk standing there, looking at him. Both of them looked at each other peacefully and neither of them spoke a word to each other. Light didn't understand what this means, but this was possibly one of the best interactions the two of them had. Ryuk smiled weakly once the thought crossed Light's mind.

"There's nothing we can do about it." Light said. "Unless of course, we decide to meet Barbara and take him down or something."

"That's not entirely a bad idea," a voice came from behind. Everyone looked behind Light, and it was L. And he was smiling.

"Light, would you like to go to London with me?"

* * *

 _Knock knock. The door opened. "Yes, what is it?" a tired girl replied._

 _"It's Larry's birthday in a couple of hours. We just wanted to know if you wanted to wish him."_

 _"Dude, I'm tired. I'll wish him in the morning."_

 _The trio of students in the Wammy School went around knocking the doors of every single dorm of the every single student living in the hostel. It was 11:00PM, and they had an examination today. Nobody in their sane mind would wake up right now to wish some freshman boy._

 _Knock Knock. "Go away."_

 _Knock Knock. "What do you want at 11PM?"_

 _Knock Knock. "Yeah, sure, why not. He lives at the first floor, right?"_

 _Knock Knock. "Who's Larry?"_

 _Knock Knock. "I'm just really hungover right now."_

 _Knock Knock._

 _Knock Knock._

 _Knock Knock Knock._

 _Knock Knock._

 _The trio of students waited, not-so-eagerly behind the door of the star pupil of their class._

 _Knock Knock._

 _No answer._

 _"A? It's me, Dennis," one of the boys said._

 _"Move over," another boy said, and looked through the keyhole._

 _His eyes widened and his skin became pale._

 _"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGHH!" he shrieked at the highest pitch possible._

 _The residential assistant came running to the door a couple of minutes later with the master key and opened the door._

 _A's dead body was suspended from the ceiling with a noose around his neck, blood dripping from his slashed wrists, collecting into a small pool on the newly carpeted floor._

 _The residential assistant yelled, "Drew, call an ambulance. After that, I want the younger kids off this floor."_

 _He walked slowly inside, and looked around. Right smack in the geometric center of the rectangular room was his suspended dead body. There was little to no chance he was alive. Not after his slashed wrists and the noose around his neck. He took out his phone and texted L,_

A committed suicide.

 _A couple of moments later, a reply._

Did he leave a note?

 _"What?" he thought. "What's wrong with this guy?" Nevertheless he searched around, and found a small, neatly folded blue envelope. Just as L asked._

Yes.

 _Seconds after, a reply._

Don't open it yet. I want to read it first. Bring it to my office.

 _On the way to L's office, the RA really wondered if the man that a lot of people consider their role model was truly worthy of such respect. His pupil died. A star pupil. The next L in the making. And this is how he reacts to his death? By the time he reached the floor where L's office was located, he had concluded, "There is psychopathy. And then there is L."_

 _He knocked the door. "Come in," came a voice from the inside._

 _L was looking at the wall when the RA walked into the office. He swiveled to look at the RA, and snatched the blue envelope from his hands. "You can go now," L ordered._

 _"Yes, director," the RA said, and then, "But before that, may I ask you a question, director?"_

 _"Shoot," L said, while using a pen knife to gently open the envelope._

 _"Does it ever bother you that your students kill themselves?"_

 _L stopped cutting the envelope midway and looked the RA, pointing the pen knife at him. "There are 5.6 million people who die every day. There are 120,000 people who commit suicide every day. Out of which 80,000 are students of some kind of institution. The world did not become a better place by mourning the dead. It became a better place by standing on the shoulders of people who lived before them. In this case, one should learn what they must avoid to not meet the same fate as A did over here."_

 _"Is there any doubt? He definitely killed himself because of the immense pressure you threw on him."_

 _"And you have proof for that?"_

 _"What is this, a court?"_

 _"You seem to be accusing me, and I have a right to defend myself so, yes, in all respects this is a court."  
_

 _The RA was about to lose his temper. "Permission to leave, director."_

 _"Go get some sleep, Louis."_

 _After the door closed, L examined the contents of the letter. It had five words only._

 _I could not escape it._

* * *

 **Please review!**


	28. We Need Our Demons

**Long delay, I'm so sorry. I was held up by finals in college, and then I started enjoying the winter break a bit too much. I'm here again! I probably would upload the next chapter in a couple of...months.**

* * *

 _Narita International Airport, Tokyo - 5 weeks later._

Light stood under the departure-arrival display, restlessly shaking his leg. L came back behind him, with two plastic cups of coffee in his hands. "It's a long flight to London." He grabbed one of the cups and asked L, "What's going to happen? What am I supposed to expect out of this?"

"I have no fucking idea," L mused, looking at the planes lining up at the terminal. "But I do know that we're confronting an old enemy. He's shown that while enemies may die, enmity never does. We're a part of an elaborate revenge plot. We should just be really aware of what's happening while we're there. Don't let your guard down for even a single second."

"I thought so," Light replied, and then with a pause, "What about you?"

L chuckled, "What about me?"

 _"Passengers of British Airlines: Gate 12 is now open for boarding"_

"Let's move."

It was no longer a question of who he was or what he was, or who or what anyone was. This was a matter of a collective identity. Too many people were involved to see how a piece of news affect a person individually. There was no more room for questions like, "Where is my place in this hot pile of mess?" There was one, and only one objective from here on forth. And Light knew it very clearly.

The only thing that matters right now, is the movie. And a silly Englishman cannot - no, _should_ not - stop the production of the movie because of his insane revenge plot for which he is the cause.

Light decided he would sleep his anxiety off.

* * *

 _Heathrow International Airport, London._

It was raining. Heavily.

Both L and Light managed to buy some overly expensive raincoats from inside the airport. They had managed to overlook weather conditions while packing for London. L warned it would be cold, he didn't say it would also rain.

Staying in Japan for over three years - not counting the month long recruitment trip - had ruined his English radar.

L pulled out his phone and searched in his contact list _Barbara Smith (asshole)._ He pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear. "Hello?" L said.

"Ah, L is that you? How are you doing? Is everythi-"

"Spiffing, yes. I'm in London. How soon can we arrange a meeting?"

"Ah," the voice in the phone trailed off, as if almost taken by surprise that L's visit was a bit sooner than he'd expected. "Do you have a hotel to stay in? I could arrange for a hotel for you to stay in."

"No thanks, Barbara, I already have one. I want to meet you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is a difficult day, L. I mean, you know more than I do that the Japanese are a pain in the arse. Those permits aren't going to get themse-"

"Tomorrow, or the deal is closed."

"...tomorrow," he replied with much resistance.

L closed the phone and pocketed it immediately. "He was expecting us. He just didn't expect us to be here soon enough."

"Are we staying at a hotel?" Light said, trying to hail a cab, flailing his hand.

"We are. My usual place." L intervened and popped his right hand onto the road in front of a black taxi with the lights on. The car stopped exactly in front of them. "Oh, and I forgot to tell you. Welcome to the United Kingdom."

* * *

L ensured that Light was asleep. He locked his bedroom as quietly as possible from the outside and walked to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and looked into its blue-green glow. It was also empty. But L didn't care. It was summer again, and the cold winds from the inside of the refrigerator calmed him down.

Barbara Smith was always ahead of him.

The way how he spoke to him on the phone meant that he was actively trying to trip him up. He didn't reveal his plan immediately, which, L concluded, was only because Barbara wasn't finished. Not even close to being finished.

"Tomorrow's meeting will determine what lies in the remnant of my lifespan," L spoke to the blue lights. "That is for certain."

He closed the refrigerator, and unlocked Light's bedroom and walked back to his room and decided to sleep. He needs all the energy he can get.

In Light's room, Light was in bed alright. But he was wide awake.

* * *

Light woke up the next day with a massive headache. He had no idea why.

"Maybe you didn't get enough sleep last night?" L asked.

"Nah, I slept alright," Light mumbled, pressing his sinuses. "Maybe I should just get something to eat."

L nodded and finished mixing his cup of tea. "Maybe you should have tea."

"Be British in Great Britain?"

"British in the UK, rather."

"Geography was never my best suite. Especially not when I have a headache."

L smiled and swiftly prepared another cup of tea. Light observed how L made it. Either it was the English in him, or because he has made so many cups of tea, he was practically doing it without seeing and with absolute precision. He pushed the cup of tea to Light, and he took it.

"Where are we meeting Barbara?" Light asked.

L pushed his phone towards Light, and Light examined the details of the message. "Caffe Nero. Trafalgar Square. Wait, Trafalgar Square?"

"Ten minutes from here."

"What time though?"

"He's going to wait the whole day."

Light raised an eyebrow.

"He's still going to act as though he is the weaker one till we met him, I think." L suggested. "He's still submissive. So he'll wait for me."

"I understand," Light nodded and started drinking his tea. Magically, he felt his sinuses clear out. "This is weird."

"Welcome to the UK."

L sipped at his extremely sweetened cup of tea. "You should probably take a shower and like, really prepare yourself."

"What about you?"

"I've observed you for a while and you're more confident when you feel clean and hygienic. I on the other hand, don't."

Light was convinced.

* * *

Caffe Nero.

Light was extremely restless during the entire bus ride. The whole time he tried to calm himself down by trying to predict Barbara's plan. It didn't work. In his mind, Barbara resembled a demon of sorts in human form but the way that he has been behaving thus far, he hasn't done anything demon like. It was perhaps that contradiction that fuelled Light's image of him as a demon.

Barbara's past has been as obscured as L's past. Light never really knew anything about Barbara other than the fact that he utterly ruined his life. And the excessive but unnecessary details of how that happened. You'd never guess - a master story teller isn't anymore once he is drunk.

"We're here." L said, and got up to get off the bus stop. Light followed him.

Caffe Nero.

"Why two f's?" Light asked.

"There he is," L said, pointed at him with the shake of his head. Light craned his neck a little to see him. He sat in a grey suit. A suit that looks like it was bought ages ago. He was sitting near the window, sipping tea as he was examining the contents of the newspaper.

L and Light entered the cafe, and a quiet thunder rolled in the skies. Light gulped.

"Ah, Lollypop!" Barbara yelled. L ground his teeth and clenched his fist when he heard those words. Light put his hand on L's shoulder, and walked towards Barbara.

"Hello Mr Smith," Light held his hand out. "My name is Light Yagami, the screenwriter of this movie."

"Ah, yes, Yagami," Barbara shook his hand. "I've heard many things about you."

"Sure you have," Light whispered. Barbara raised an eyebrow as he caught the escaping comment.

L seated himself next to Light, and snapped his fingers to get the attention of a waiter. "What would you like, sir?"

"The strongest coffee you got," L replied.

The waiter, wrote something down on the notepad. "And you sir?" he looked at Light. "I'll have some tea."

"What kind?"

Light didn't think this through. "Earl Grey?"

"Got it," he wrote down on the notepad. "Aaand, I already took your order."

"I believe you did," Barbara smiled at him.

The waiter left the table and back to the kitchen. Barbara leaned towards L and Light and said, "It's been a while, hasn't it L. Oh, how I miss you so much."

"I'm sure you do, Barbara," L replied.

"It has been years L, since we last met."

"Are you sure that was the way you wanted to end that sentence?" L said. Light was unaware whether L was aware of the words coming out of his mouth.

Barbara's smile fell. His eyebrows became firmer. "What do you mean?"

"Has it really been years since we last met? Or has it been years since you lost everything you owned?"

Barbara leaned back and sipped from his cup of tea. "I thought we both moved on from that, L. I'm disappointed."

"You fucking liar," L spat. "If we truly moved on, why isn't your daughter here?"

Barbara looked out the window. "Allison Smith. Good girl." He looked at Light. "Have you seen my daughter, Mr Yagami?"

"Only in movies, sir."

"Yes, yes, the movies. Then you sure saw more of her than what I expected," he said, trying to muffle his laughter.

Light raised an eyebrow. "I'm an artist sir. I don't watch movies just to see people naked."

"Is that so?" Mr Smith replied. "I've worked with a lot of marketing personnel, and they all believe what everybody your age wants to see are naked women!"

"Can we please discuss the agenda at hand, sir?"

"Yes, please do," L said. "Mr Yagami here is exceedingly impatient. Traits of his father. Nobody likes him for it."

"As you wish, L. I have the final papers that you and your previous producer would have to sign to fully transfer the ownership of the movie so far."

"Absolutely, Barbara. I just have one question. Why do you want to take this project up?"

"Wha-" Barbara tried his best acting amused. "For old times sake, of course!"

"Old times sake? Really?" L replied.

"Absolutely."

"Do you know what memories I share with you, Barbara?"

Barbara sat quietly.

"I'll that as a no. These memories, they haunt me in the form of dreams every night. And every single time I see your face, I either see you kicking me with you boots, calling me a work whore when I was sixteen, or fooling me into producing my movie because nobody else would, and in the end discrediting me from everything I had worked on."

"My god, L," Barbara took another sip of his tea. "Why do you hold such a great grudge over me?"

The waiter arrived and served L's coffee to him - a shot of espresso. "Your order will be ready in a couple of minutes, sir," he told Light. Light replied with a polite nod.

"I don't know, Barbara. Perhaps what's happening right now reminds me too much of our last, failed deal."

Barbara tapped his fingers on the table. The waiter appeared again and provided Light with his tea. Light took it and took hasty sips from the cup.

"Tell me, L. Why did you bring Mr Yagami here?" Barbara said.

"Why not?" L shrugged.

Barbara emptied his cup of tea, and continued rapping the table with his fingers. "Mr Yagami, why did you lose your previous producer?"

"You know it was my father, you can say it."

"Fine. How did your father lose trust in you, and L and this movie?"

"The script was leaked."

"Oh, was it now?"

"Yes, it was."

"What happened?"

"Why is that important?"

"I don't know, something more dangerous might happen, like the movie itself might get leaked days before we release it. It's a risk, Mr Yagami. I'm simply assessing the risk."

"I'm sure you already have, Mr Smith. Otherwise, we wouldn't be sitting here talking, we would have finished the movie."

"Hmm, true. Unless you stopped production because you have no money to do so."

"Which is why we're here. Hooray, we're up to speed." L broke in.

"I don't know, L. You're the one who wanted to meet me."

This confrontation with Barbara wasn't going nearly as well as L had planned. Barbara's facade seems to be immune to all kinds of attacks. He doesn't seem to shift from his position at all.

L decided that he could no longer wait.

"True. But I also wanted to meet Allie. Where is she? How is she doing?"

Barbara's smile strained to keep up but wavered from time to time. "She's fine. She's quite fine."

L smiled, his hair covering his half closed eyes. "Is she though?"

Barbara stopped rapping the table. He adjusted his tie and cleared his throat. "What makes you say that, L?"

"I read the newspaper, Barbara. I'm not stupid. While I am fairly ignorant about what happens in the world around me, I am not ignorant about people who have been linked to my past."

Light was confused. He couldn't remember any discussion he's had with L in the last couple of months that even came close to what L was talking about right now. He shifted himself, looking directly at L.

"What happened to Allie?" Light asked, switched between L and Barbara. Barbara hid his hands under the table. L cleared the hair that was obscuring his eyesight.

"Tell him, Barbara. Tell him what Allie did."

Barbara wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and looked through the window, attempting to smile at the least. He gave in. And L knew it for sure.

"Allie shot her brains out last winter."


	29. Nihilistic Tendencies

**Can you feel it guys? This story is ending!**

* * *

"Y-You're kidding right?" Light stammered. His eyes jumped back and forth between L and Barbara. Barbara's unmoving facial expression just made this meeting all the more difficult to digest. L remained stationary too, examining Barbara's facial expressions.

"Liar," L smiled.

Barbara put his glasses on the table and rubbed his eyes. "How did you guess?"

"I didn't. Thanks for confirming it."

"Wait, so she hasn't committed suicide?" Light asked. "Where is she then?"

"That unfortunately, is hard to answer. Yes, she didn't commit suicide. No, I do not know where she is. She was already living in a car when I lost the company, L, and after the court case I lost all contact with her. The only time I saw her after that was in her movie. I tried contacting some people I know to find out where she was, but she went totally AWOL."

"I'm sorry to hear that Barbara."

"Please, I don't want your sympathy. It's a weakness. How do you think I managed to get a lot of my money back? I convinced a lot of producers that they were the reason she killed herself and guilt tripped them into giving me a monthly allowance. That's why I'll be able to make your movie, L."

"Again, I quite don't understand why you would want to produce my movie."

"Like I said, for old ti-"

"You were a good liar. You're a terrible one now."

"What do you want me to say, L? That this is revenge that I meticulously plotted out because you alienated my daughter from me?"

L held his shot of espresso, and downed it in one gulp. He didn't even flinch. "Sure, I'll take that."

"That's bullshit, L."

"Let's face it, Barbara. You don't like me. You've never liked me. The only moment you liked me was when I made my initial movies under your banner. Once I broke away from you, you did the dirtiest tricks possible to get me under your banner again. This just seems like a repeat of history. There is no reason for you to like me, Barbara, and seeing as all of your money isn't technically yours, I don't know why you would want to waste your fortune trying to finance my movie. You know it is a risk. You just told Light here that it was a risk. You just made it obvious to everyone in this meeting that this movie is a volatile money burning piece of art."

Barbara smiled at L's comment and looked at his empty cup of tea. "Excuse me while I visit the restroom," and walked into the restroom. Light looked at L in silent horror. "Are you alright?" Light asked.

"Perfectly. I'm at the top of my game," L replied.

Barbara got back and sat in front of the duo. "Now, for the distribution permi-"

"Mr Smith," Light interrupted.

"Yes, Mr Yagami?"

"Ask me that question again."

"Which one?"

"About our previous producer."

Barbara smiled. "Why did you father distrust you, Mr Yagami?"

"Because I thought I loved someone."

"Oh, God!" Barbara chuckled. "Mr Yagami, are you suggesting that your script was leaked by your girlfriend?"

"Yes indeed."

"Kiyomi Takada was your girlfriend?"

"He never said it was Takada," L said.

"He didn't. But the news of the script's leak was all over the world. I saw the leaked blog post fairly recently."

"How recently?" Light asked.

"Hmm. A couple of weeks ago?"

"Ha, you see that's funny," Light smiled, leaning onto the table. "She removed the blog post at my request six weeks ago. Six weeks. That's nearly two months."

Barbara's smile dropped immediately. L licked the drops of espresso stuck to the bottom of the shot glass. Light pulled his phone out and placed in front of Barbara Smith.

"Kiyomi Takada _was_ my girlfriend. She told me all about you. Every single detail. Why do you think we would come all the way out here?"

"Nonsense. L, speak some sense into this kid."

"I'm afraid he's right Barbara. I've been trying to get you to say it yourself but your facade is impenetrable. She told him everything about you. About all the phone calls."

"I was assured my number was blocke-" he stopped mid sentence and thought, "Oh, fuck."

"How does one fall for the same trick twice, I do not know." Light smiled. "Alright then. Let's get down to business."

L for a brief moment, respected Light like he respected the man sitting in front of him when he was fifteen.

"I was really hoping this wouldn't be the case, Barbara," L sighed. "I really wish it wasn't. I thought we both were over what had happened. But it clearly wasn't. But now that you know that we know that you had a hidden plan the whole time - tsk, tsk, tsk - it looks like you threw the entire business proposal under the carpet."

"Hmph. Okay fine. Then what? Who is going to fund your movie now anyway, L? You didn't win. You already lost. You just dragged me down with you."

"True," L stretched his arms. "But we have a plan. I was almost willing to share the plan with you, but since you really aren't what you seem to be, kinda makes it hard sharing these plans with you. What do you say, Light?"

Light replied with a smile.

"I'm afraid our deals are closed. Take all the papers that you have stored neatly in that suitcase of yours and burn them all, because that's what you are to me now - nothing but someone who was burnt up. Light, we're done here. Let's leave."

L and Light stood up to leave, and Light said, "Nice meeting you, Mr Smith."

As L walked down the aisle, he heard Barbara yell from behind him, "One moment, L!" L swore under his breath and turned around. "What do you want now?"

"You're clever, L," Barbara said, standing up. "Cleverer than I thought you were. But it seems your brain is capable of working only when it wants to hide what it truly feels. Tell me L, is this your way of dealing with the fact that the main reason why Allie is missing is because of you?"

L bit his lip. He refused to look up. Light tried to pull L away from this conversation, but L wouldn't budge.

"What's that, L? Why aren't you saying anything? In fact, why aren't you moving? Light seems to want you to avoid this conversation. So tell me, L. What did you do to deal with the fact that you ruined my daughter's life?"

For a very brief moment, Light forgot the fact that the person they were dealing with was a mad, cold, psychopathic businessman, acting on pure vengeance for ruining his reputation and hold over his assets. He realized what Barbara Smith really was. A really, really hurt father.

Hurt father.

 _Hurt father._

 ** _Hurt father._**

Too quickly, his brain made a connection between Barbara and his own father. How his father's life went spiraling down the drain once his mother died. Sure, what he did was wrong, but it doesn't move away from the fact that he was extremely hurt.

"What's going on?" Light thought. "What is happenin-"

His train of thought was interrupted with a loud crash. Light snapped out of his dizzying thoughts and saw what was unfolding.

L had attacked Barbara, in front of everyone in the cafe. Barbara had fallen on the table, and had very likely broken his back doing so. L didn't stop there. He came close to him, and whispered, "Don't you try and use Allie like that against me, Barbie. Don't you fucking dare."

He lifted his leg and stepped on Barbara's thigh. He slammed it down. "Don't." Again. "You." And again. "Fucking." And again. "Dare." And finally swept his foot across his face, injuring his neck.

Light rushed towards him, trying to stop him from injuring him any further. The waiter called 999. The customers hid underneath the tables. Light held L's arms and locked him from behind. What Light didn't know, was that L wasn't sane anymore. He flicked his back and threw Light through the window, shattering the glass and making Light crash on the small garden that was just outside the cafe.

The cops had arrived.

L was arrested.

And Light along with Barbara were hospitalized.

* * *

All Light could remember after crashing through the window was a bright concoction of red and blue lights with a blaring siren. This reminded him of his episodes, only he knew it wasn't. An ambulance.

And then just darkness. Crushing darkness.

He knew that he was put under, possibly to fix some kind of internal bleeding or something. Those details were probably immaterial to him at this point.

L had gone insane.

It was the first time he saw L completely break loose. It was true that L was under tremendous pressure for the last couple of months, but Light automatically assumed that he had developed some kind of resilience to it.

Clearly, he was wrong.

By the time he woke up, he could smell the repugnant disinfectant everywhere. It reminded him of rehab. But it didn't throw him into an episode. He couldn't hear Ryuk either. Weird.

He opened his eyes and looked around. There was a mask around his face. IV's strapped to his wrist. He was in a gown. He craned his neck to see... anything, really. But he couldn't. The curtains had prevented him from seeing the outside world. He only assumed that he was in an emergency room.

He monotone of his pulse being digitally amplified was a lullaby strong enough to send him to sleep.

He woke up the next morning, and he found that his oxygen mask had come off - just that he was still fed IV. He used his right hand to search for some controls. He found a tiny remote attached to the railing of the bed. He adjusted the bed, and the bed automatically made him sit straight.

A nurse walked over with a smiling face, and checked the IV and the blood pack. She then looked at the pulse monitor and wrote something in her chart. "How are you feeling, Mr Yagami?"

"Pretty good, thanks," Light said. "Which hospital am I in?"

"Oh, St Thomas's. You were injured pretty badly, but not too bad. Just a week in bed, and you'll be alright. I promise."

"Good, that's good to know," he said, clearing his raspy, dry throat. "How do you know my name?"

"A man vouched for you. He said you were a friend."

"Barbara Smith?"

"Indeed. He was injured too, but only mildly. He's stuck with a neck brace now."

"I see."

"I will get you your pills now. If you need me for anything, just press the blue button on the remote that's in your hand."

"Thank you. And before you leave, what's your name?"

"Merrie Kenwood. Call me Wedy."

* * *

Light had cracked his hand, his leg and also had some slight damage to his head. Now while the head damage was taken care of, the hair line fractures took a while to heal. Four days after he was admitted into the hospital, he could walk again, although only with a walker.

Barbara had also gotten his suitcase kept at the baggage counter. Wedy offered to fetch it for him, but Light insisted that he needed to walk.

"You last name please?" the man at the counter said. "Yagami," he replied. "Ah one second. Mr Smith thought it would be better if he left your baggage with me than bring it to you."

"I wouldn't blame him. Have a nice day!" he took his suitcase and managed to get back to his bed.

He suitcase under his bed and fetched his phone from the breast pocket of his coat. One new message. From Misa. He opened the message.

"Morning! How're you feeling today?"

Light texted back. "Much better. Are you free?"

She didn't reply for a while. Different time zones. And she sent her message hours ago.

Light placed his phone on the nightstand nearby and looked at the stripy curtains that blocked his eyesight from the outside world. Maybe he could get someone to transfer him to a private room or something.

Maybe he should just write something. Maybe that is the wisest thing he thought of ever since he decided to write Low of Solipsism.

Low of Solipsism. What kind of a name was that?

 _ping_

Misa had replied. "Sure. Wanna talk?"

Light let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't going to write today after all.

"Hey, Misa."

"Light. You sound much better today."

"Yeah, they've reduced the amount of pain blockers today. The pain is more obvious, but I don't have to sound like a heroin addict."

"True. When will you be discharged?"

"Quite possibly next week. I'm apparently healing slower than usual."

"Aw, that sucks. Have you talked to your father yet?"

"Yeah, sort of. We had a really brief conversation. It was more to do with the legal ramifications of L's outburst than about what happened to me, so."

"He's been through a lot of stress. He probably-"

"Nah, it's no longer an issue, Misa," Light smiled. "I know about him. I think I do. I at least understand him better now. It's alright."

"That's," Misa took a short breath in case she was about to cry. "amazing to hear, Light."

"I know. Past me would shoot me with a sniper rifle right now if he had the choice."

* * *

Three days later, Light couldn't fall asleep. London felt a lot colder than expected, but that doesn't seem like affecting him all that much. He just couldn't lower his consciousness into the quick sand of sleep. He closed the laptop placed on his thigh, and placed it on his nightstand. He tried writing something to calm him down, but it didn't help.

He sneaked a glance at a clock. 4 AM. Fuck.

He reached out for his walker, and gripped it tightly, the sweat from him palm reducing the traction he could otherwise get with the gripped handles on the walker. He pulled himself out of the bed, and walked out of the room, one sorry step at a time.

A late night duty nurse walked past Light and was concerned about the patient walking around at 4 in the morning. "Are you quite alright sir?"

"Yeah, no problem. I was just searching for the cafeteria. Is it open at this hour?"

"Of course, you need to use the elevator to get to the sixth floor. The entire floor is dedicated to the cafeteria, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding it."

"Sixth floor. Gotcha. Thank you."

"No problem."

Light made it to the elevator, and got inside. He noticed he was breathing heavily. Maybe this walking idea wasn't the best idea after all. The elevator took its own sweet time moving floor to floor. It stopped on the fourth floor, and a young woman with an infant in her arms got on. She approached the sixth floor button too, but stopped. "Cafeteria?" Light asked.

"Yeah. The little one is hungry."

Light wondered for a half a second why he was smothered by parental images all around him. His thoughts always centered around what Barbara said, and how it relates to what his own father is doing. But more than any of that, he felt an intense urge to understand his father's mind.

Sixth floor. The nurse wasn't kidding when he said that the whole room was dedicated to the cafeteria.

He got a platter of cheese and crackers. That's what Google said when he searched for way to sleep. He sat close to the window, as he saw the sun rise from the horizon into the overcast skies. He checked his phone. No texts. More importantly no texts from L.

Light had assumed automatically that L would get out of holding a couple of days after he was arrested. Apparently he was wrong. And Misa told him that the day L got arrested, the Wammy boys had gotten back to London. Light felt slightly bad when they didn't come to visit him.

It almost looked like everyone and everything that were close to the Wammy Film School had curled itself up, protecting itself from the outside world. All communication with the Wammy boys ceased perennially.

Misa wasn't nearly as agitated as she thought she would have been, but Matsuda was, apparently. His plan would undoubtedly not work anymore due the lack of a crew - and L - and he had to take a small vacation just to calm his nerves down.

Everyone was scattered everywhere. So were Light's thoughts.

"Where are you, L?" Light thought as he looked through the window. He tried calling L one more time. Voice mail. He tried calling Quillish one more time. Voice mail.

"Fuck!" he slammed the table with his fist, as the woman with the infant who was sitting at a nearby table flinched.

He finally felt sleepy. Cheese and crackers helped after all.

* * *

Two weeks later, he came back to his Tokyo home. Misa visited frequently, but Light begged her not to stay.

One night however, he realized that he probably should have asked her to stay.

That night, he was having dinner that he prepared himself. It wasn't the best, but it was certainly better than hospital food.

Suddenly, his phone rang. He approached it and saw _*blocked number*._ "Hello?"

"Light?"

"Nate! What's going on?! What's the meaning of this communications blackout?"

"Might as well come out with it straight instead of beating around the bush," Near said, trying to hold in his voice from breaking.

"Nate? What happened?"

"L committed suicide in prison last week. We'd really like it if you came for his funeral on the 31st of October," and Near hung up the call.

* * *

 **Fun chapter.**

 **And also as an additional note, thank you, all my followers and reviewers who have been with me and this story for nearly a year. For the next chapter, is the last chapter.**


	30. The Ashen Sky

**This is the last chapter.**

* * *

 _Young Light stood behind the ginormous studio lights that lit the set. His father stood by the director, chugging on the cigar in his mouth. The set had a young petite woman standing by the sink, cleaning the dishes. Suddenly, a young man walks onto the set. He tells her something. Light couldn't make what the words were. The woman breaks down and falls to his shoulder._

 _Light was confused. He walked towards the screenwriter who was sitting far behind, looking at a large pad of paper, checking whether everything was going as planned. "Hello," Light introduced himself. "My name is Light Yagami. I'm Souchiro Yagami's son."_

 _"Of course, I've seen you before little boy," the screenwriter replied, ruffling his hair. "What's up?"_

 _"What just happened?" he said, pointing at the woman wailing audibly now._

 _"Oh. The man just informed his step sister that their father died."_

 _"Oh," Light looked away. "Thank you for your time!"_

 _"Glad to help."_

 _Later that evening, Souchiro walked Light back home. Light walked along, one hand in his father's hand, and the other hand holding a cone of melting ice cream._

 _"Father?"_

 _"Yes, Light?"_

 _"What does death mean?"_

 _"Hmm," Souchiro scratched his chin. "Is it because of what you saw today?"_

 _"Yeah."_

 _"Hmm, how do I put this. It's when a person who was living before, just stops living. They stop breathing, they stop thinking, they just stop."_

 _"Oh."_

 _The remainder of the walk was in silence._

 _Once they got back home, Light ran towards his mother who was sitting in front of a typewriter with a glass of wine in her hand. "Mother, I have a question for you."_

 _"Sure, Light."_

 _"What does death mean?"_

 _"Oh, goddamn it. Souchiro, did you take him to the set again?"_

 _"He insisted!" Souchiro yelled from another room._

 _Sachiko sighed, and put her glass of wine down. She kissed Light gently on his cheek, and whispered, "You know how you sleep every day and wake up without fail?"_

 _Light nodded earnestly._

 _"Death, is when people sleep, but never wake up."_

* * *

 **October 12th.**

Light locked his phone and placed it on the table. He swayed his way towards the couch, and fell on it. He rested his head on the wall, and stared blankly into the distance.

His brain contained no thought.

His neurons were temporarily paralyzed.

Seconds passed.

Minutes passed.

Hours passed.

He heard a knock at the door. It snapped him out of the thoughtless void he was submerged underneath. A couple more knocks. He attempted to walk towards the door. He couldn't lift either of his legs. His pyjamas swept the floor as he made it to the door. The knocks became higher in frequency. Light opened the door slowly as the creak resounded across the room.

"Light!" Misa stood outside, tears flowing across her cheeks.

"Misa," Light said with a perfectly catatonic facial expression. "What are you doing here?"

Misa very nearly pounced into Light's body and hugged him as tightly as she could. Light hugged her back, but only out of reflex.

Hours later, Light was able to come back into sync with reality. "How did you find out?" Light asked. "Mello called," Misa replied. "We talked for nearly twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes, huh," he whispered, kneading his forehead. "Near called me, and the call lasted for exactly one sentence."

"One sentence?"

"He called me and said, _L committed suicide in prison, we'd really like it if you came to his funeral._ "

"And then he just hung up?"

"And then he just hung up."

Both of them sat there in silence, but the silence was not awkward. Both of them were dealing with a reality that neither one of them expected to ever see in their lives. Misa was still trying to control her tears using the box of tissues that Light brought. Light on the other hand seemed unnaturally stoic. Misa was too sad to recognize Light's weird behavior.

However, for once, Light was not going insane. Even if it was a reality he didn't expect, it was a reality he could deal with. And he was surprised he had attained the ability to deal with unfortunate realities.

* * *

 **October 13th.**

Misa was fast asleep on the hard wooden floor, and Light woke her up with the smell of hot tea. She woke up completely disoriented and honestly, quite confused. "Tea?" Light asked her, with a smiling face hiding a tired soul. "Sure," she said, rubbing her red eyes and grabbing hold of the tea cup.

"Careful, it's hot," Light warned and headed into the kitchen to get his own cup of tea. "I got this tea when L and I were in the UK. I don't know what they do there, but the tea somehow just tastes better over there."

Misa sipped slowly from the piping hot tea. Light wasn't kidding - it was extremely hot. But the aroma from the tea smelled really, really good. It cleared up the sinuses that were bloated up because of all the crying that took place last night.

Light came back outside, and sat at the couch, placing the cup of tea on the table. "Do you know if the others working on the movie have been informed?"

"I don't think so," Misa replied. "Mello didn't suggest anything towards the fact that others might know. I wouldn't bet on it."

"Alright," Light sipped into his tea, with great tolerance to the heat. "I guess it's up to us to tell the others, huh."

"I guess so."

Light sipped again, and thought hard for a while. "I'll take care of my dad, you call Matsuda. Do you think I should tell Sayu?"

"Probably."

"Okay, I'll inform her as well."

"Light," Misa interrupted him. She paused for a moment, wondering whether she should say this at all. "I don't know how you're dealing with this news. But if anything happens, please call me immediately."

Light held Misa's hand and patted it gently. "Don't worry. I doubt anything would happen but if it does, I promise you, I will call you immediately. But you should be worried about breaking the news to Matsuda. He's a rather emotionally uncontrollable person."

Light left for his room immediately to change, and Misa left for her house shower and change as well.

A few hours later, Light was sitting in front of his father in his office in absolute silence. Souchiro removed his glasses and placed them gently on the table while rubbing his eyes. He swiveled away from Light, and tried to not show his sorrow.

Minutes passed in absolute silence. Light finally decided to break the silence. "Fath- Dad."

The word sent a chill down both Light and his father's spine.

"Remember when I came to this office before the movie started? Trying to pitch L as a director?"

"Sure, Light," Souchiro attempted.

"Remember what you told me that day?" Light said, getting up from his chair, and closely walking towards his father.

"What did I tell you, Light?"

"You told me that I would revolutionize the cinema industry, and that this movie would put your company back into business and I would also be simultaneously propelled into the cinema industry. Do you remember what you added to this disguised compliment/insult?"

"I remember very vaguely, Light. It has been a while."

"You said all of this would happen," Light paused for a chuckle. "If and only if L finished this movie."

Souchiro chuckled through his tears as well. "Events of our lives are not in our hands, are they?"

"I just want to let you know, dad," he placed his hand on his shoulder. "L tried. He really tried. He put every breathing second of his life that is now no more to try and bring my story to the screen."

Light then proceeded to hug his father from behind, as his father continued to cry.

Several blocks away, Misa stood outside Matsuda's apartment, pressing the intercom button. After seven tries, Matsuda finally replied, and he said, "Who is it?"

"It's me, Misa."

The door buzzed open almost instantly.

* * *

 **October 14th**

Light was washing the dishes back at Sayu's studio apartment. She was preparing for her finals and he decided that he would help her out doing some of her chores. He removed his apron after finishing the washing the final dish and sat next to her on the bed while she was furiously reading up her textbook content for the final. Light took his laptop that he had in his backpack and opened it up. He checked his email.

There was one from the Wammy School.

 _"Hey Light, it's Mello. I just wanted to let you know if we can do anything to make your travel back here more comfortable. We could book the tickets for you, if you'd like."_

Light thought for a second whether he should get the tickets from Mello or whether he should buy them himself. It certainly seemed selfish to make people who just went through an emotionally jarring experience to buy tickets for them. He simply replied, _"It's alright, I'll book the tickets myself."_ And then he paused, and just to honor Mello's wishes, _"Although it would be fantastic if you could find a place where I can stay once I get there. Also, some of the people from the movie wanted to visit too."_

Mello immediately replied.

 _"No problem! You could probably stay on the on-campus guest_ _accommodation. I'll text you the details as soon as I have them."_

Light smiled and pocketed his phone. There was a knock on the door. "I'll get it!," Sayu said, using her brother's shoulder to lift herself off the bed.

The door opened, and Misa stood there, with an awkward smile. "Hi," she said quietly.

"Hello," Sayu's voice faltered.

"Sayu, who is it?" Light asked. She didn't reply. Light walked to the tiny cloak room where the door was and saw Misa standing there.

"Here to pick me up?" Light asked.

"Yeah," Misa replied. "That and, I wanted to talk to Sayu."

The sentence sent shivers down Sayu's spine.

* * *

 **October 20th**

 _Narita International Airport_

Light stood at the immigration counter, as the inspector went through his passport. She took one long look at Light and asked him, "This is the second time you're going to the United Kingdom in less than six months."

"Yes, that is correct."

"What's the reason for your visit this time?"

"My best friend died. We're attending his funeral."

" _We?_ "

"My best friend and I. Also a couple of people who were close to him."

"Alright. I hope you convey my deepest regrets," she said in an extremely machine-like tone. Light smiled at her insincerity, and replied, "Will do."

* * *

 **October 19th. Time zones are weird.**

 _Heathrow International Airport_

Light and Misa walked out of the airport to find a limousine waiting for them. Matsuda and Aizawa soon hurried between them. "Oh my God, that's a huge car." Matsuda exclaimed.

"That's a limo," Aizawa replied.

"You don't say," Matsuda replied.

An elderly man popped out of the driver's seat and welcomed them, "Good morning. I hope your plane wasn't too rough."

"It wasn't. It turbulent at times, but it wasn't as bad as last time," Light shook the man's arm. "You must be Roger."

"Indeed, I am. Mello told me a great deal about all of you. It means a lot to the students of the Wammy that you have come all the way from Japan to attend L's funeral."

"There was no trouble," Misa said. "He was our friend too after all."

Roger chuckled as he opened the doors of the car for Misa. "Friends. The only moment I've heard that L of all people had friends was after he died."

The local atmosphere immediately sobered down a lot more, and the trip to Manchester remained extremely quiet.

* * *

 **October 21st.**

Light and Mello sat by the fireplace in absolute silence. Mello sipped from his warm cup of hot chocolate, whereas Light had no drink to distract him. He looked into the flames as though they held the key words to a conversation that him and Mello would have. He sighed, and broke the silence, "How are you holding up?"

"Good, good," Mello replied. "Matt has gone on to do another project somewhere in Sweden, I think. Near isn't doing much these days. He's still shaken up from the news."

"Near is?"

"Believe me, I am as surprised as you are."

Light smiled, "Is it really all that surprising though? This school is manufacturing cold and distant creators clinging to a clinical approach to representing the human mind. L tried to put on his hard cover, and it worked very well for him, until that mask cracked open. In reality, that is all this school teaches you - to build powerful masks."

"Hmph," Mello buried his nose inside the cup. "Does that include me?"

"I don't know," Light shrugged. "You don't have the same cold mask on, but you probably do too."

"In that case, everyone probably has a mask."

"You're not wrong. Misa is right now, in her bedroom, wondering the kind of mask I'm putting on right now to deal with this news. She has been wondering the same thing ever since she met me the night we heard the news."

"Are you?"

"I'd like to think I'm not."

Mello paused for a second and looked into Light's eyes. Mello has always noticed that about him. There's just something about Light's eyes that lets you know that he knows what he was talking about. But that was all - it only looks like he knows what he's talking about. Underneath all of the fake warmth in his dark brown eyes, Mello always found a significant amount of 'deadness' in his eyes.

He didn't find Light's eyes even remotely close to 'dead' today. Sure, it seemed distant, but it wasn't wearing a facade anymore. "For your sake," Mello finished his cup of hot chocolate. "I hope so too."

Light smiled in response.

"What about the movie?" Mello asked.

"I have an idea in mind. I thought I'd discuss it in front of everyone after we go through with L's funeral."

"We're doing the movie?" Mello's eyebrows flew.

"You could say that," Light paused for dramatic effect. "But not in the manner you'd think."

"I'm listening."

"You really want to do this now?"

"Why not?"

Light leaned forward, and rested his chin on his fingers. "Two words. Touta Matsuda."

* * *

 **October 24th.**

There was a knock on Light's bedroom door. "Who is it?" Light asked, his nose buried inside his laptop.

"It's Near," the voice outside said.

"Come on in."

The door creaked open, and Near walked inside. He looked horrible. His eyelids were droopy - probably from all the sleepless nights of crying - and his clothes were all crumbled. Light looked closely around Near's ear, and his eyes widened in mild horror. Near was balding.

"Are you alright?" Light stood up, throwing his laptop away.

"I'm fine, mostly." Near managed to say, sniffing.

Light paused for a moment, considering if this the right moment. Was Near truly coming out of the shell that he wore around himself to make himself more like L? This was the only way to find.

He rushed forward and pulled Near into a tight hug. Near was alarmed, his mouth partly open and his eyes completely open. Tears began flowing from his eyes as he uttered a quiet wail.

"He shouldn't have died," Near said, his voice muffled by Light's chest. "It wasn't fair."

"We've seen several instances in his own movies that there exists no fairness in this world, Near." Light replied, his hand holding the teenager's head. "L's death was not fair. Not to him, not to us, not to anyone in the world."

"Why?" Near wailed into Light's chest. "Why would he do that?"

Light had been thinking about it for a while now. The thought persisted in his mind for quite a long time, but he couldn't put it in words. He calmed Near by patting his back, and whispered, "Because he couldn't escape the prison of his own consciousness."

Near pulled away for a brief moment, his eyes not meeting Light's. "Have you heard about what happened to a boy named 'A'?"

"I've heard of him, but not in detail."

Near wiped his eyes, and held Light's hand. "Come with me."

Near dragged Light across the almost vast interiors of the Wammy School. If a person who didn't know about the school were to somehow find himself in the building(s) he or she would easily mistake it for a church. Painted glass windows, massive columns, gothic/roman arches and everything that very nearly screams out pre-1800s architecture.

Near brought Light to a fairly small room (well, in comparison to the other rooms), that had a picture, a 9mm film camera, and a small tombstone with the plaque that had a large letter in the middle. **A**.

Near allowed Light to roam around the room and inspect the stone monument. "Is this a memorial of sorts?" Light asked Near, as he looked around the stone.

"We call it a monument. L called it a reminder."

"A reminder?" Light asked, as he saw tiny reels placed next to the stone.

"That we should never travel the same path he did - to distract ourselves with romance or materialistic desires when it comes to making art."

Light picked up one of the reels, and turned to Near, "Was this one of his short films?"

"All of them are. There's a projection room nearby. You can watch all of them if you want."

"If it isn't too much trouble, of course."

"No, no, there's no problem at all."

Light slowly examined the reel absentmindedly, and asked Near, "You know what L told me about A?"

"What did he say?" Near asked, half-curious.

"That A was duplicate."

Near smiled. "You'll see why he said that when you watch his movies."

Light was astounded. Near was not wrong. When he watched every single 15 minute short that A produced, they were remarkably similar to L's own work. If film forgery were a thing, A would be the world's best film forger.

After watching A's entire filmography - 21 short films and one 92 minute feature film - Light couldn't understand why L as a filmmaker would hate A for this. Light thanked Near, and asked him to visit him whenever he felt like it.

Light went to sleep that night, wondering why L didn't like A.

* * *

 **October 30th.**

Light had the opportunity to see L for the first time since he left London.

He was absolutely still, a stillness Light had never seen in his entire life. He'd seen dead people before, he'd seen still things before, but somehow L's dead boy somehow represented a higher level of stillness. He was wearing a black suit, his hair combed, and his skin pale as ever. There was a white cardigan in his suit pocket, and well polished black shoes for his feet.

Light always wondered whether L left behind some kind of suicide note, in whichever form. But he couldn't find any. He'd been in the UK for nearly two weeks now, and he couldn't find any clues in the Wammy School, and now that he was able to see L's body, he couldn't find any there either. Light thought that it was probably because of this inaction of L, that it caused Light to think that L was completely gone.

He was to be cremated tomorrow.

He walked out of the church where they had L, and found all the friends he knew from the movie standing there.

"What's up, Light?" Matsuda asked. "Mello said that you had something to tell us. About the movie."

Light walked down the stairs, and said, "Let's go to a cafe. We wouldn't want L to hear us, would we?"

"So, what's the plan?" Matsuda asked again, once he sat on the table. "I'm sorry, I need some interesting/exciting news to cover up L's body."

"I understand," Light replied. "Let's get this out, first. Matsuda, you'll be the new director of the movie. I've discussed this with my father, and he's completely for it. What do you think?"

Everybody except Mello around the table dropped their jaws. Especially Matsuda. "Why me?" he asked.

"That's the wrong question."

"When do we start?"

"That's the right question," Light replied. "A week after we get back to Japan. Also, we're changing your plan, but very briefly."

"What are we changing?"

"So, Matsuda's plan was, put briefly, to make the movie about the actors who made the movie, right? Let's just say we're extending the idea. We're making a documentary about L's final movie."

"A documentary?" everybody said in unison.

"A tribute to the greatest film maker in the 21st century."

* * *

 **October 31st.**

Light sat close to the glass chamber where L was being cremated. It was a large metal box with fringes in the side that glowed orange once the man switched the power on.

All of that brilliance.

All of that skill.

All of that complexity.

All of that humanity.

The monster was finally reduced to ashes.

* * *

 **5 days after, back in Tokyo.**

Matsuda seems to be overly excited about the directorial opportunity. He tries to imitate L at times, but there is one thing that Matsuda wants that L would have probably flipped over.

Matsuda always, _always_ shoots handheld.

Like when L was around, Light sits around the set whenever Matsuda was directing. He's actually pretty good at it. I guess there was one vital element what L had that Matsuda has successfully carried over to his own directorial career. He knows what to do.

The worst thing about a director, Light feels, is indecisiveness. The job is loaded and is heavy and you are responsible for every single thing that happens on the set and off the set. Until the last theater runs its last run of the movie, everything that happens in between is the responsibility of the director. That was L's philosophy, and that worked well for him. For a while.

The pressure caught up to L too soon, and by the time L started making this movie, L realized that his seemingly tried and tested critically and commercially tested formula for manufacturing great movies doesn't work too well at all. Light realized that the biggest thing he must learn from L's death was this. And it was the first thing he told Matsuda when he came to him asking for advice.

When Light saw the Aesop Memorial in the Wammy School, all he could think of was how the kid made L into a God in his head. The perfection of his shots, the cynical behavior of his characters, the dark and broody nature of all his films - it struck to Aesop as an especially realistic depiction of how the world works. The problem came when Aesop decided to replicate an already faulty mechanism, which caused his mental skeleton to crumble from the inside.

When L was upset with all of Aesop's work, it wasn't because his shots weren't good enough - it was because his shots reminded him too much of his own. And the film was school was to foster originality, not replication.

When Light thinks back to the first day he met L, he always remembered the nagging doubt that always lingered until he just drank it away. Why would L choose him? Why would L shoot a movie made by a beginner? Light only hoped that was L saw in his story, was originality. And with what Matsuda is doing right now, the originality is definitely there.

Light knew that by the end of this movie, things may or may not be better for him. But he'd like to think that things would at least get better in the vastly unoriginal and boring industry of cinema. L wanted a bright flush of originality into the industry filled with merely replications and sequels. And Light knew that he had to honor L's wishes and make sure he does exactly that.

He would rid the cinema world of its rottenness.

As the day's shoot wrapped up to its end, Matsuda half-happy with the scenes he shot today, Light could only think of one thing. The world deserves a man _like_ L, but not L himself. He looked at Matsuda while drinking some late-night coffee wondering if Matsuda could be the person who the world deserves.

* * *

 **Aaand, done.**

 **This story is officially done. There might be an epilogue, but I'm not too keen about it, since I feel like I wrapped it up pretty nicely. Who knows, amirite?**

 **To all my reviewers, thank you so much on this awesome journey for little more than a year. Your criticisms and encouragements were the sole reason why this story made it past 20 chapters (and believe me, I would have stopped at that point abruptly, if I found the need to).**

 **Thank you once and for all.**


End file.
